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SKETCHES 



OF 



OXFORD COUNTY. 



BY THOMAS T. STONE, 

Pastor of the Church in Andover. 



APPROVED BV THE COMMITTEE OF THE M. S. S. UNION. 




PORTLAND; 



»Y SHIRLEY AND UYUE. 



1830. 



DISTRICT OP MAINE, TO WIT ; 

DISTRICT CLERK'S OFFICE. 

BE IT RKMEMBERED, That on the third day of February, A, 
D 1830, and iit the fifty fourth vear of the Independence of the 
United States of America, Messrs, Shirley &. Hyde, of said District, 
have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof 
they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, <o wit: 
" Oxford Sketches. 
" By Thomas T Stone. 
*' Approved by the Committee of Publication of the Maine Sab- 
bath School Union." 

Portland : Shirley & Hyde, 1830. 

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, en- 
titled " An Act for the encouragement ol learning, by securing the 
copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of 
«uch copies, during the times therein mentioned," and also to an 
act, entitled " An Act supplementary to An Act, entitled, An Act 
for the encouragement of learning, by seeurine the copies of maps, 
charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, dur- 
ing the times therem mentioned; and for extending the benefits 
thereof to the arts of designing, eHgraving and etching historical 
and other prints." 

J. MUSSEY, Clerk of the District of Maine. 
A true copy as of record, 

Attest. J. MUSSEY, Clerk D. C. Maine. 






OXFORD SKETCHES, 



The Domestic Evening, 

I vnW. imagine a scene ; it is among the 
loveliest in a world, which has innumerable 
joys mingled with its many sorrows. I re- 
member such an one in my childhood, and 
how I loved it. It was in early spring or 
autumn, when, after the toil or play of the 
day, I came into the house which my motlier 
had prepared for the evening; a brisk fire 
from the hearth playing on the windows and 
ceiling ; my mother smiling on her talkative 
children as they gathered around her; my 
father resting from his day's work, and their 
little ones clambering about him to hear his 
stories or his song ; these make up the scene 
of bliss which I never can forget. A scene 
like this, 1 will imagine in some fathers' house 
among the mountains of Oxford, as his rosy 
cheeked boys and girls sit at his feet or climb 
his knees, and cast their beaming eyes on 
his happy face, while he and tlieir mother 
alternately repeat the tales which they heard 



4 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

from their parents, or of which they are 
among the subjects. The mother, to whom 
I will give the name of Greenwood, begins 
the evening by the story of 

The First Settlers. 

" Nearly forty years have passed since a 
good father, who lived in one of the older 
settlements in a neighboring state, thought 
of emigrating with his family to the new 
country. Several towns, in what is now the 
County of Oxford, were then beginning to 
receive cultivation. Through these he pass-, 
ed without finding a place such as he sought^ 
till he reached the Androscoggin. Its rich, 
intervals and the lands bordering on them, 
were the first spots with which he was sat- 
isfied. They had few settlers, nor did he 
despair of finding better land beyond them. 
To one who travels down the banks of this 
stream, even now that they have received 
such abundant culture, as he casts his eye 
on the shaggy tops of the many hills and 
mountains which contract the prospect, and 
appear almost inipervious to human foot- 
steps, the first feeling is of impossibility that 
beyond them still streams and fertile plains 
should invite the pursuit of n>en. But in the 
very moment when cultivation seems to have 
reached its limits, new fields and good farm- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



houses rise to the view. Perhaps from the 
dark forests of an earlier period, these ap- 
parent limits of labor did not present them- 
selves : the shades which overspread the 
plain may have hidden also the frowning and 
interminable brow of the mountains. At any 
rate, the emigrant passed them. 

••' In the northern part of Oxford County, 
there is a small stream tributary to the An- 
droscoggin, called Ellis River. It has three 
branches, two descending from the moun- 
tains to the north and north-west, and the 
third issuing from a pond, which bears the 
same name with the river, lying to the east. 
It iorms along its banks a large quantity of 
beautiful interval ; above rises a plain, which 
as you go to the north, opens for several 
miles into a widening tract of fertile land. 
On every side but the south, where it winds 
its way to the Androscojxgin, mountains, 
here distant and covered with forests, here 
jutting into the valley, and bared either by 
nature or by terrible firrs which have swept 
them to the summit, form in their rough 
grandeur, a strange contrast with the smooth- 
ness and beauty of the valley, into tliis nook, 
whither scarce any had entered but the In- 
dian as he chased the wild beast or fished 
in the waters, the emigrant betook himself. 
He brought his family to an abode in the 
1* 



6 d^irFORD SKETCHES. 

forest, many miles beyond the dv/ellino: of 
white men. They lived tAvo years without 
a neighbor; the husband and the wife, and 
many children, to whom another was added 
in the wilderness. 

"At an early period of their marriasfe, 
they declared themselves disciples of Jesus 
Christ. They brought in their heart rever- 
ence for the principles of Christianity, and 
with their possessions (for they were neither 
poor nor rude in manners) books, of which 
they valued most, both for themselves and 
for their children, the volume of inspiration; 
and on the Sabbath, and morning and even- 
ing, from their cottage in the woods, the 
voice of prayer went up before God. Theii* 
children were attached to boolis ; they were 
well instructed ; and, far from all other so- 
ciety, they must have loved each other with 
more than common affection. In due time, 
many of them were sent abroad to gain an 
education beyond what they could acquire 
at home ; nor were their advantages misim- 
proved. 

" Meantime the town was gaining in popu- 
lation. Other respectable iamilies at once 
aided its progress, and gave it a good reputa- 
tion for morality and intelligence. A church 
was formed ; a minister was obtained ; a 
second has succeeded; the emigrants re.- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 7 

main ; their children live, some in their own 
neighborhood, others in more distant places ; 
not one has died ; most are professed wor- 
shippers of their fathers' God ; and in a hap- 
py old age, they see you, my dear children, 
growing up to love and bless the first settlers. 

"Now, my children," says Mr. Greenwood, 
"I will describe another scene, and urge you 
in imitating the virtues of your ancestors, to 
avoid the vices by which so many are expo- 
sed to destruction. You have heard of 

" The Falls of the Jlndroscoggin. 

'' The first time I saw them, (and I had nev- 
er before seen falls whose descent exceed ^.d 
thirty feet) I was disappointed. It was in 
August; the season was so dry, that, instead 
of a mighty cataract, it seemed rather like 
some brook swollen by heavy rains and 
tumbling over a steep and rocky channel. 
But in the Spring when the streams are 
filled by snows melted on the mountains, 
beneath which the Androscoggin and its 
branches rise and flow, it sweeps a broader 
path and foams with deeper finy. On the 
southern side of the river, the woods still 
stand in sombre e;randeur, forming a pros- 
pect beautifully adapted to the character of 
the scenery. On the side through which 



e OXFORD SKETCHES. 

the road passes, there is also a portion of 
forest remaining ; but as the industry of man, 
which converts every thing to profit, has 
already formed Mills which are carried by 
the waters of the Fall, and opened far(ns 
which seem now to encroach upon its do- 
mains, we may expect that ere long the 
wildness of nature will give place to the 
products of labor. After tumblin?" down its 
rocks, the river still rushes furiously onward, 
and, within a short distance, is swelled by a 
noisy and changeable stream, to which, from 
the rapidity of its current, and still more the 
suddenness of its transitions from a purling 
brook to a broad and deep river, the coun- 
try has given the expressive name of Swift. 
" It is a fact well known in the region of 
the Androscoggin, and has already srone into 
print, that as a Mr. Rolfe who died in Rum- 
ford a few months since, was one niffht 
crossing the Androscoggin, his boat took a 
wrong direction, f"ell within the current 
which dashes over the falls, struck a rock 
which peers above the waters on the verge 
of the descent, and leaving him safely upon 
the rock, was hurled into the basin beneath. 
In the morning, he was casually discovered 
by a few men, seemingly composed in his 
perilous situation. They first attempted to 
rescue him by boats held and drawn by 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 9 

ropes ; but the moment they reached the 
verge of the cataract, their hold wasbroken. 
At length a rope bound round a tree was 
thrown to him : he tied it about his body, 
and his friends drew him uninjured to the 
shore. 

" He was an intemperate man ; and it is 
said to have been the impotence of intoxica- 
tion which exposed liim in this perilous 
situation." 

" Oh, my children," exclaimed the warm 
hearted mother, " I lost from my bosom a 
lovely infant, and I had rather follow each 
of you to a grave by its side than see you 
given to intemperance. You must shun 
other vices also. You must not break the 
Sabbath. The old man whom you see with 
us so often, frequently tells how observant 
of this holy day an Indian was whom he 
kiew when he first came into the wilder- 
ness. " It was Sabbath ; there was no meet- 
ing ; we felt solitary and walked along the 
interval to a wigwam. The red man refus- 
ed to leave his camp till the Sabbath was 
over." It was contrary to his education and 
principles ; and if you, my little ones, diso- 
bey God by breakins" his Sabbath, oh, how 
will this untutored Savage, as we call him, 
condemn you in the day of judgment." 

There was silence for a while. The chil- 



10 ©XFORD SKETCHES. 

dren at leng-th ex> laimed at once, "Can't you 
tell us some more stories I The evening lias 
but just begun, and we do not wish to go to 
bed." " Yes," replies the father, " 1 can 
tell you a long story now, and we will call it 






" It was a beautiful morning in Septem- 
ber, when 1 left home — 1 then lived far to 
the north — to solemnize two marriag- 
es, and to spend the Sabbath in a small 
settlement on the Magalloway River. After 
travelling a few miles, first on the plain which 
spreads between Ellis River and the blue 
mountains that rise and extend beyond it ta 
the borders of New-Hampshire, thence over 
a rough track now shaded by a second 
growth of forest-trees, and now peering in 
naked sterility to the clouds, now crossing 
a turbulent stream foaming over the rocks 
which form its bed toward a branch of the 
Ellis, that here winds between dark and 
barren hills, and now touching or passing 
near the narrow strips of interval which oc- 
casionally open amifist the dreariness of the 
scenery, 1 entered the deep forest, which, 
with few interruptions, reaches to the Um- 
bagog and its neighboring Lakes. It was 
not an unknown path. The first time 1 had 
traversed it, was for a difi'erent purpose. A 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 11 

poor old man, whose sou had chosen for his 
farm a lot near one of the openings in the 
forest, by some casualty received a womid 
of which he died. I was called to his funer- 
al. I went eight miles on Saturday, and 
spent the night at a small and neat house 
occupied by an interesting family, who have 
since left it for a less secluded abode. A 
partial openins" had been made in a lot be- 
tween their own and the farm, in Andover ; 
but it had been cultivated, I presume, merely 
enough to yield a single harvest, and no 
house had been erected. Beyond them, 
though not within sight, a log-hut arose on 
a spot, from wliich the trees of a few acres 
had been cut down. Here they lived on a 
green plain remote from the habitations of 
men, the mountain on one side towering 
above them, and the Ellis, here but a brook, 
rippling at their feet. Over the opposite 
bank, the trees still lifted their tall bodies, 
and hung their wide-spread and leafy branch- 
es. A fallen trunk bridged the tranquil cur- 
rent. It is a scene which none who loves 
to converse with nature, and commune with 
its Author, would willingly leave untrod 
when a bright morning beamed through its 
shades or the sun made a golden set. On 
the morning of the Sabbath, with the owner 
pf this beautiful valley, I went to the house 



12 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

where the funeral was to be attended. It 
was but four miles ; yet from the state of the 
road, my ride occupied near two hours. 
The road was cut through a mountainous 
tract, and from the thinness of the popula- 
tion little improved — rough, muddy, and 
steep. At length we reached the opening. 
It is on a richly wooded hill, from which the 
mountains on every side are seen lifting their 
dark forests or their white cliffs to the sky ; 
and through the trees, when the branches 
and the undergrowth are stripped of their 
leaves, a glimpse is caught o^'the Umbagog 
embosomed in trackless woods. The solem- 
nities of a funeral need no description in a 
world of death. But here was something 
peculiarly solemn. The log-hut in which it 
was attended, stood alone; there was not 
another within four miles on either sile. 
The hill had been cleared but a few years ; 
there was no burial-place — but from the 
arms of a few men who had come miles to 
attend the obsequies of poverty, a solitary 
grave took him to its bosom, and keeps him 
safe as the rich man's tomb, to the coming 
of the Son of God. 

" At the time of my present journey, I was 
to consummate the union, which should be 
of souls. I had several miles beyond the 
scene of the funeral to pass through the 



I 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 1.3 

woods before I came to the house where I 
should spend the night previous to taking 
the boat which was to carry me over the 
lake and along the rivers that stretched be- 
tween me and the end of my route. On the 
morning of Saturday, with a friend who ac- 
companied me the rest of the way, I went a 
few miles on foot to meet our boat. I had 
taken a few books to read on my passage ; 
but the motion of the boat, the dazzling rays 
reflected from the water, and my curiosity 
to observe the new objects about me, ren- 
dered them useless. There could scarcely 
be a lovelier day for enjoyment of my situ- 
ation. The sun went up and descended a 
cloudless sky ; there was no wind to agitate 
the waters ; it was all the peculiar and sooth- 
ing repose of early autumn. We left behind 
us the habitations of man ; there was little 
before us or around us but the workmanship 
of God. No human dwelling was near save 
that of a solitary native, who is spending his 
last and untended years amid the ancient for- 
ests. We touched a point still covered with 
its native wood, and went to it. It was made 
of bark. We opened the frail and misshapen 
door, and entered. It had no floor but the 
earth ; in the centre was a stick suspended 
horizontally with hooks to receive any ves- 
sel hung over the fire, which, when neces- 
2 



14 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

sary, was kindled on the ground beneath. 
On the side was a poor preparation for the 
occupant and any hunter or fisherman who 
might ask his hospitality, when they stretch- 
ed themselves in their blankets for repose. 
The camp was now abandoned for a time ; 
its owner had crossed the lake in his canoe^ 
and begun his hunting scout among the 
northren mountains. He is an aged Indian; 
his name, Netalloch. Along the shore of 
this lake, he has spent many years ; alone 
by its side he buried his wife ; here he has 
chosen the spot for his own grave. But 
who is there to lay him by the side of her he 
loved ? And how is he to find his way to 
the blessed home of Spirits ? Like many of 
his nation, he is addicted to intemperance, 
and though observant of the Sabbath, yet he 
can know little of religion — almost nothing, 
I suppose, but from papal tradition." " Oh," 
exclaimed the interested mother, "that Jesus 
Christ might shine into his heart, and send 
the light of his Gospel, and the influence of 
his Spirit, to the millions who are going 
down to the grave without God and without 
hope." 

" And," cried the children at once, " if he 
could be with us ! Father and Mother would 
teach him, and we would give him our little 
books, and he could go to meeting with u? 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 15 

Sabbath-day, and hear about God, and learn 
to be good." 

The lather continued — "We took again 
to our boat. There was little of novelty in 
the prospect of a calm lake and sky, and of 
uninterrupted woods, hills, and valleys. 
There was but one thing to remind us that 
men were not far off. The borders of the 
lake and the streams about it, are olten na- 
tural meadow, yielding a long and smooth 
grass, which, though not equal to the pro- 
ducts of cultivated farms, furnishes a tolera- 
ble provision for cattle, peculiarly valuable 
when there is scarcity of clover and other 
kinds of hay. Of this grass, every now and 
then we saw a large quantit}'' collected in 
stacks, to which in the winter the farmers 
go with sleds, and remove it to their barns. 

" We came at length to the Androscoggin, 
which, after mingling its waters with the 
long chain of lakes stretching to the north- 
east, here issues forth, and flows for a con- 
siderable distance through an unsubdued 
country, then enters the region of cultivation, 
and between Shelburne and Gilead comes 
into Maine, thence through many beautiful 
and thriving towns takes its course to the 
ocean. I had before passed it after its union 
with the Kennebec. I had before stood 
near the junction of these noble streams. I 



16 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

had before traversed the banks of both, 
where they were rich with culture or crown- 
ed with large and flourishing villages. Now 
amidst mountains and iorests I was at the 
head of the one, and from the water's of the 
Umbagog, I sailed down its caln\ bosom, and 
gathered the high cranberries or stooped 
my head beneath the bushes which hung 
wildly over its channel. 

" Our course was turned. We entered 
the Magallowdy, a beautiful branch of the 
Androscoggui. We still continued to make 
our way through scenes like those we had 
passed, till we landed near two of the few 
houses which are scattered for several miles 
along the iMagalloway. Thence we walked 
two miles through a footpath opened in the 
wooGS ^o the house where the Sabbath was 
spent. — My work was finished, and we pre- 
pared early on Monday to retrace our path. 
The lake was as calm, the air as serene, the 
sky as blue as before, and we arrived hap- 
pily at the house of my companion. The 
next evening I spent at home. 

" The small settlements on the Magalloway 
are partly in this State, and partly in New 
Hampshire. They are either on intervals or 
on uplands contiguous to the stream which 
is there but a brook in the dry season,though 
it has sometimes risen by excessive rains to 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 17 

such a height as to surround a house which 
stands on the bank. There is but is a narrow 
strip of land between the mountains,suscep- 
tible of culture ; but higher up the river it is 
said to expand into a broad and fertile re- 
gion. From a mountain which almost over- 
hangs the narrow opening, a large quantity 
of earth carrying the rocks and trees 
in its path, rushed down a few years since, 
and as it fell, was heard by some of the in- 
habitants, who were ignorant what its thun- 
der might import, with equal astonishment 
and terror. The desolation it left, visible at 
a great distance, continues to disclose its 
broader dimensions as you obtain a nearer 
view of the scathed mountain-side. Of the 
people who dwell beneath these mountains, 
it need only be said, that like others in snni- 
iar situations, they are in want of full and 
adequate instruction in Christianity, and in 
the elementary branches of education. 

" More than twenty years ago, when there 
was neither house nor road between Ando- 
ver and the towns in New Hampshire, a 
gentleman procured from the former place 
a party to assist him in breaking a path, and 
carrying a load beyond the lake. It was in 
the depth of winter. The weather was 
pleasant at the time of their departure, but 
a severe snow-storm fell in their absence— 



18 OXFORD SKETCBES. 

tlie weather became excessively cold, and 
the path over the lake almost impassable. 
Those who took care of the teams, had 
neither food nor fire. They were in this 
state near two days, and one of them was so 
dreadfully frozen as to render the amputa- 
tion of both his legs necessary for his re- 
covery. 

"" It is but four or five years since on one 
of the lakes in the vicinity a more fatal event 
occurred. Two young men left Andover 
together — the one, for a place wher.^ he was 
engaged in labor beyond the U. ke — the oth- 
er, after accompanyiner him awhile, to re- 
turn. It was late in April. The individual 
who had returned, went in a few days across 
the lake, expecting to meet his friend. He 
was not there, nor had any thing been 
known of his attempt to pass the lake. The 
cause could not be doubted. I saw the ven- 
erable and grief-worn father when he was 
going to search anew and in vain for the 
body of bis lost son. A limb and part of his 
dress were afterwards found, carried by the 
water to a shoaler place in the lakes. Thus 
it is, that in the midst of life we are in death. 

" This region, now obscure and wild, will 
ere long be occupied by a busy population. 
The parents and the children of large and 
wealthy towns know litde either of the trials. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 19 

or of the enjoyments, the blessings, or dan- 
gers, which await the pioneers by whom it 
is destined to be opened. But they can do 
something to increase the one and diminish 
the other ; they can do away the prejudices 
which too often fasten to the remembrance 
of them ; they can aid in enlarging the num- 
ber of ministers and teachers ; they can help 
to send them good books and pious missiona- 
ries ; they can pray that the God of nature, 
who is so great in all his works, but greater 
in the construction of the soul than in every 
other on earth, would enrich them with his 
grace, and hasten the time when every 
abode of man shall be the temple of his wor- 
ship. 

" Go now, my children, to your rest ; to- 
morrow we promised to visit the grave-yard 
with you, and there we shall find new sub- 
jects for conversation, and thought, and 
prayer." 



Evening Prayer of a Cottager. — Burns. 

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King; 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, 

That thus they all shall meet in future days : 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh or shed the better tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise. 



^U OXFORD SKETCHES. 

In such society, yet still more dear, 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

Compared with this, how poor religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method and of art, 
When men display to congregation* wide, 

Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! 
The Power incensed, the page.nt will desert, 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
But haply in some cottage far apart, 

May hear well pleased the language of the soul, 
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. 



The Grave Yard, 

Neither the parents nor the children forgot 
the promised visit to the ^rave-yard. There 
is something solemn to eveiy thinking mind 
in recollections of the grave, and no\v it was 
enough to s.>ber the garrulous and playful 
spirit of chil ihood. The first to interrupt the 
silence was Mr. Greenwood ; — '^ I always 
loved the erave-yard. My mind was contem- 
plauve in boyhood ; I felt mysalf the creature 
of God formed and destined to immortality. 
I remember one old and solitary burial-place, 
to wdiich I u8v-d often to go. When my 
daily task of study was finished, 1 have left 
my companions to their amusement, and, as 
it drew toward twilight, gone alone to that 
eacred spot. There were the old and the 
young, the obscure and the renowned ; and 



OXFORB SKETCHES. 



21 



1 well remember one stone overgrown with 
moss, which bore the name of a man, who, 
probably a century ago, held a commission 
under the British sovereign. This place of 
the dead was peculiar. It st«od on a vast 
and desolate plain ; the houses in its vicinity 
were few and old and poor. A deserted 
church reared its unpainted side, now brown 
with age,by its gate, aiding the great impres- 
sion which every thing around conspired to 
deepen, of the desolation to which all human 
things are destined. Within its enclosure, I 
have seen the child of three years old laid to 
rest, and to a grave by his side, I saw men 
but a little after commit the father, whose 
memory still lives in my heart, and will live 
there till I see him again." — He paused with 
emotion, then resumed — " I loved him as a 
father, and he was a father to all whom he 
taught. Yet remember, my children, that 
after a life of distinguished virtue and useful- 
ness, he left it as his dying testimony that he 
hoped for salvation only in Jestis. Long before 
this affecting scene, I had ofone to that holy 
place, and returned with rekindled devotion 
and purified desires. I learned to expect 
mortality ; I learned a hi,>-her lesson ; 1 felt 
that the soul, imperishable as the mind that 
formed it, lives in a world to which this is^ 
but the avenue." 



22 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

They now entered the grave-yard. It was 
small, and in many parts overrun with low 
bushes ; for it was not here, as in the burial- 
places of older towns, where every portion 
of earth has been removed in opening some 
spot for interment. Nor were there any 
proud monuments, any family tombs ; there 
were even but a few stones inscribed to the 
memory of the dead. The raised and crum- 
bled earth, and a stake or an unhewn stone 
at the head and the foot of the grave, were 
their humble memorials. Mrs. Greenwood 
knew best their names and characters; lor 
she was walking over tne ashes ot her ances- 
tors and their companions in life and in death. 
She told them of one who sleeps without a 
stone far from the land of his fathers, and 
far from her who would have been his bride. 
She saw the fever bring down his strength ; 
she was with him till he died ; she forever 
cherished his memory. Time softened her 
grief; she became the wife of another. He 
left her in widowhood. She was a servant 
of Christ ; so was her first friend. Severed 
on earth, their spnits are now rejoined in 
the bosom of their God. — Here she pointed 
out the graves of two venerable patriarchs, 
the children of one mother, and brethren by 
higher birth. Each had his peculiar virtues, 
both served their God, and died as they had 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 23 

lived, in the faith of Jesus. The wives of both 
are with them here, and I trust, above. I re- 
member therr,^' she contiimed, "in my child- 
hood, and I remember others of the young 
also, who are here asleep. Here, my chil- 
dren, is a sister of mine, and near her a sis- 
ter of your own, the httle one who died in 
my arms. They were both lovely in Ufe ; 
they were lovelier in death. Oh, there iS 
something in the countenance of an infant, 
when the breath has ce sed, so tranquil, 
the lips are half-opened in o sweet a s uile, 
the eyes so gently closed a-, in quiet sleep, 
I cannot avoid the feeling that it is the em- 
blem of its unseen destiny." 

"Yes," replied Mr. Greenwood, "and I can- 
not join with those who censure, as extrava- 
gant, in its appUcation to infancy, the beau- 
tiful stanza of Milton : — 

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead, 
Or that thy corse corrupts in earth's dark womb) 
Or that thy beauties lie in wo my bed, 
Hid from the world in a low -delved tomb ; 
Could Heaven for pity thee so strictly doom ? 
Oh no ! for something in thy face did shine 
Above mortality, that showed thou wast divine." 

Meantime the children were alternately 
listening to the conversation of their parents, 
and speaking to each other about the sad- 
ness of dying, of leaving their play-mates and 



•i4 OXFORD SKETCHEfe, 

lying down in the cold earth. They regain- 
ed, "at length, their buoyancy of feeling. 
" Tell us, dear father," they exclaimed, " the 
history of some of those who have died and 
are buried here." 

" There is not much that is eventful as to 
many of them," he replied. " I might tell you 
of an old Indian woman, who used to traverse 
this region, and how many thought her a hum- 
ble christian ; but I know little about her. I 
might tell you of some good people, whom 
your mother has not named ; and, I am afraid, 
of some who were not good ; (but it is for God 
to judge the heart,) yet theirs was the common 
lot. Like others, they had their sunny hours^ 
and their dark hours, their virtues and their 
vices, and now the grave has closed over both. 
But I recollect an event which had in it some- 
thing of greater interest than is usual even in 
death. The interest arose from the history of 
the old man, who, after sufferings from which 
we are exempt, died at last peacefully among 
his children and friends. 1 was at his funeral. 
After alluding to the different periods, infancy, 
childhood, and maturity, at which death comes, 
the preacher proceeded — " Sometimes we be- 
hold one after a long life, lay it down and go 
to rest. How many scenes, we think, has he 
passed in his pilgrimage ! Through what vicis- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 25- 

situdes has he gone in his journey below ! He 
has often endured adversity, often enjoyed 
prosperity. Frequently he has felt his heart 
raised in joy ; with equal frequency, perhaps, 
it has sunk in grief. When he dies, it is not 
unnatural to recall the changes through which 
his country has passed within his recollection. 
Perhaps he has seen its face covered with for- 
ests, and scarce traversed but by the wild-beast 
and the savage hunter. Partly perhaps by his 
own efforts, the field has succeeded the forest, 
and the village an Indian wigwam. On the 
spot where the wild-beast was hinted, the 
products of agriculture are abundant. In oth- 
er days, he saw, perhaps, the savage lying in 
ambush for the white man, and feared the 
tomahawk and scalping-knife. Perhaps he 
was himself seized and carried into captivity. 
He has witnessed successive wars, and rejoiced 
in the return of peace. He has seen his coun- 
try subject to foreign dominion ; he has shared 
in its independence and prosperity- He has 
seen houses everywhere reared for the instruc- 
tion of the young, and where the wilderness 
spread, an edifice for the worship of Jehovah. 
This last scene," added the preacher, " we 
have lately witnessed. We are assembled to 
attend the funeral rites of him, who, after pass- 
ing through all these changes, and surviving to 



26 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

a good old age, has now begun another exist- 
ence." 

" And," the mother rejoined, " as a prepa- 
ration for leaving this place with those feelings 
with which it should ever be associated, and 
for the religious services which are to day ap- 
pointed for the children of the village, I will 
repeat other sentiments from the same dis- 
course. 'Were man but the creature of a dayj 
were that existence which we spend on earth 
the only period for exerting our mental powers, 
for enduring sorrow or enjoying happiness ; 
were man doomed, after unfolding his high ca- 
pacities, to sink into annihilation, it were less 
important to think of the close of life. But 
when we reflect that this is a state of trial and 
education, that our powers and capacities are 
perpetual, and that they will be endless sources 
of joy or woe; when we add the thought, that 
with the close of life, the condition of each in- 
dividual is assigned, the subject assumes a so- 
lemnity which neither human language can 
describe nor the human mind conceive. When 
we go to our appointed mansion with the dead, 
we shall not sleep in unconsciousness. Even 
our bodies will rise, and we shall stand before 
the judgment-seat. All human distinctions 
vanish in the grave ; none remains for the judg- 
ment but that of sin and holiness, of vice and 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 27 

virtue, of impiety and obedience to God. From 
tile immense assembly Jesus Christ will gather 
his a])proved disciples, while others are lett be- 
hind ; these assigned to punishment, those uni- 
ted with their Lord in glory. Oh blessed hour 
to the behever ! How bright the morning which 
shall drive all darkness irom the tomb, and 
open the paradise ol God ! Toward this para- 
dise, if disciples of Christ, we are swiftly ad- 
vancing. There all our pious friends will meet 
us, and join us in the everlasting worship and 
service. Here they may be removed to a dis- 
tance from us, as they must leave us at death ; 
and while they are with us, both they and we 
suffer from mutual imperfections. There we 
shall meet them all ; they will be perfect, and 
we shall be perfect ; they will be immortal, and 
we shall stand with them before the throne.' " 



Separation of Christian -Frienrf^.-— Montgomery. 

Friend after friend departs ; .; 

Who hcith not lost a friend ? 
There is no union here of hearts, 

Which finds not here an end. 
Were this frail world our final rest, 
Living or dying none were blest. 

Beyond the flight of time, 

Beyond the reign of death, 

There surely is some blessed clim^, 

Where life is Hot a breath, 



-38 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

Nor life's affections tnnsient fire, 
"Whose sparks fly upward and expire. 

There is a world above, 
Where parting is unknown, 
A long eteriiity of love, 

Formed for the good alone ; 
And faith beholds t* e dying here 
Translated to that glorious sphere. 

Thus star by star declines, 

Till all are passed away, 
As morning high and h'gher shines, 

To pure and perfect day : 
Nor sink those stars in empty night, 
But hide themselves in heaven's own light. 



The Lecture for Children. 

It was afternoon ; the parents and the chil- 
dren had returned from the grave-yard, and 
were well prepared for the services of religion. 
The day was one of the mildest among the still 
and soothing days of autumn. The children 
assembled ; the prayer and the psalm were 
closed, and the preacher addressed his youthful 
group : — 

Who was faithful to him that appointed him. 

Heb. 11. 2. 

It is God the Father, you know, who ap- 
pointed Jesus Christ. Let us consider to what 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 29 

office the Father appointed him, and how Jesus 
manifested himself faithful. 

The office to which God appointed his Son, 
is shown by his name. The angel said to Jo- 
seph before he was born, Thou shalt call his 
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from 
their sins. But in the great office of Saviour 
several things meet, agreeing with what men 
and women and children need. We are ignor- 
ant, and need instruction, depraved and need 
holiness, sinful and need forgiveness. Without 
Christ the Saviour, men are ignorant of God ; 
so that Paul, when he was telling the Ephe- 
sian Christians of their state before they were 
converted, says they were without God. This 
is a beautiful world, and, as the seasons pass 
over it, shows its Maker to be great, to be good, 
to be lovely. The springs, and brooks, and 
rivers, the green grass, the fragrant flowers, and 
the tall trees, the fruitful valleys and the high 
mountains, the blue sky, the rain-clouds, the 
gentle or the bolder winds, the evening stars 
and the sun, the music of birds, and even the 
hoarser sounds cf animals that walk the earth, 
all manifest the Godhead. Yet Ephesus was 
a city in the midst of a beautilul country. The 
Ephesians saw fountains, and streams, and the 
dark blue sea ; they saw how lovely earth is 
in its hills and its valleys, and how majestic 

3* 



30 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

the arching sky with its sun, its fair moon and 
its stars glittering like gems. Yet all these 
things, so fair and so divine, could not bring 
God down to them. Till Christ was preached, 
they were without God; nay, they praised the 
moon as a goddess. You remember their long 
and loud cry. Great is Diana of the Ephesians, 
and this Diana was, they thought, no other than 
the moon. They had strange fables also about 
Diana, how she was a huntress, and used to 
go rejoicing in her dart along the mountains in 
chase of the wild-beasts, attended by nymphs, 
daughters of Jove, the supreme deity, who were 
beautiful, but less beautiful and majestic than 
theii" virgin leader. Wuh Diana, they worship- 
ped mukitudes of gods, male and female, some 
beneath the earth in fabled regions of darkness, 
some in the sea dwelhng in dark green caverns 
ufider its waves, some on the land along its 
rivers and among its groves, and others in heav- 
en, surrounded with pure light and unclouded 
air. — Without Jesus, the Saviour, men are ig- 
norant of the soul as immortal. Paul tells of 
the Ephesians being without God : he speaks 
of them also as having no hope. This was a 
sad state certainly. The youngest child among 
you knows about death. You have been at 
funerals. You have heard of a man or woman 
dying, or of a little boy or girl, perhaps your 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 31 

own brother, or sister, or parent. But your 
father and mother told you that the dead will 
live again ; that Jesus died and afterwards 
arose, and that all who sleep in him shall rise 
out of the grave. The grass on the graves is 
withering and dried up in autumn ; it will soon 
be dark and stiff with frost, and the winter 
snows will wrap it up in ruin. The snow will 
melt ; the frost-bound earth will be open and 
warm ; then the grass will grow green again, 
and the wild- flowers will bloom over the bo- 
soms of our lost and loved ones. These loved 
ones are waiting for a kindred spring. They 
shall live again. They shall live by the power 
of Jesus, the anointed Saviour, and die no 
more. Without Christ, men do not know this ; 
they go down to the grave, and cannot tell 
whether they shall come up again ; they expire 
like lamps when their oil is spent, and cannot 
tell if they shall be rekindled. 

Jesus is called an Apostle as well as Saviour. 
Apostle means one who is sent ; and Jesus was 
sent of God to save the world from ignorance, 
by revealing the one living and true God, the 
Father, his God and our God, his Father and 
our Father, and by making a future life known, 
abolishing deaths and bringing life and im,' 
mortality to light. 

But men are as depraved, as they are ignor- 



32 OXFORE SKETCHES. 

ant ; nay, their ignorance conies from their 
depravity. They do not love to retain God in 
their remembrance ; they cannot desire an im- 
mortality which is unhappy. They practise 
sin. I ask you, children, Are you not sinners? 
Think a moment before you answer to your 
own minds. Do you love to think of God ? 
Do you pray to him ? Are you always obedient 
to your parents ? kind to your brothers and 
sisters, and to your play-mates ? Boys, do 
you ever use wicked words ? ever ridicule or 
mock the ignorant, the infirm, the poor, or the 
old ? ever teaze or fret each other ? Girls, do 
you ever envy one another ? ever repine be- 
cause others are handsomer or lovelier than 
you ? ever tell tales to make some one appear 
less beautiful or amiable ? Take some day, 
your best, in which you spent the happiest 
hours, and were most gentle and tender-heart- 
ed ; enquire whether you did not indulge some 
wrong feeling, whether you were not thought- 
less of God, proud, selfish. You are depraved, 
and need holiness. Jesus, the Saviour, is ap- 
pointed to make you holy. God sent him irato 
the world to bring us back to virtue, exalted 
him to heaven, that he might give repentance. 
God appointed Jesus to impress his own image 
by the truth which he revealed, and the spirit 
which he sent. You must learn the truth Irom 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



33 



the Bible ; you must gain the spirit by prayer 
and obedience to your Father who is in heaven. 
Jesus Christ does not make you holy contrary 
to your own will ; he produces a good will and 
works with it. If you wish to be good, — pure 
like Jesus, holy like God, — study the Bible, 
pray to the Lord, do your whole duty to God 
and to man. Remember your dependence on 
the Holy Spirit, the comforter, the monitor, the 
great and good teacher, whom Jesus Christ 
promised to dwell with the obedient forever, 
and to sanctify them throughout in soul and 
spirit, and even body. Do not resist, do not 
grieve, do not reject, the spirit of God. 

Sinners need forgiveness also. Suppose 
you offend your parents ; you are not happy 
till you know they will not punish, and unless 
you know they love you as well as ever. Can 
you be happy while God, your heavenly Fath- 
er, is offended, and while he threatens punish- 
ment ? But God is offended with sin, and the 
sinner must perish unless God will save him. 
He has told us how he can save, how he can 
rescue from perdition, and be just in forgiving 
and blessing sinners. Jesus is saviour from 
wrath ; the Aposde of God is our high-priest ; 
our High-Priest offered up himself. The in- 
nocent lamb used to be slain and burned on 
an altar, to prevent men from suffering punish- 



34 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



nient ; behold the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sin of the world! Ciiiist is the be- 
loved son ol God, in whom we have redemption 
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. 

God appointed Jesus Christ lo be Saviour 
from punishment, from sin, from ignorance. 
Let us observe next his faithfulness in this 
office. His faithluluess consisted in his doing 
exactly what God required. He knew that he 
was faithful, and has told us, As the Father 
gave me commandment, even so I do. — I do 
always those things that please him. He was 
faithful as a teacher ; He that sent me is true, 
and I speak to the world those things which I 
have heard of him; — faithful in protecting his 
disciples against sin ; H'hile I was with them, 
in the world, I kept them in thy name ; — faithful 
as a priest to offei up himself; 1 lay down my 
life that 1 m.ight take it again. J\'o man ta- 
keth it from me, but 1 lay it down of myself. 
Such is his own testimony ; and God confirm- 
ed it. The Father approved his fciitbfulness 
when he began his work, declaring. This is my 
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Dur- 
ing his work, God repeated the declaration on 
the mountain when Jesus was transfigured. 
After his death, God assured the world of his 
approbation by raising him to his right hand, 
thus making him Lord of the Universe. Thus 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 35 

God confirmed the testimony of Christ to his 
own faithfulness. You are not called, my 
young hearers, to such a work as Jesus ; none 
on earth or in heaven could do it but he ; yet 
while you are children, you may be faithful in 
the humbler work which God has appointed 
you to perlorm. Like Moses, you may be 
faithful, as a servant of God, though you cannot, 
like JesuSj govern as the Son. Even like the 
Son, you may do what God commands, by 
being pious to him who made you, and kind to 
others whom he made, by leaving off sin and 
practising virtue. Have you been thus like 
Christ? Each of you, perhaps, will say, *The 
little boy or the little girl who sits by me, has 
not been like Christ. He does not love God 
and obey him". He is unkind, or proud, or 
revengeful.' — Now think a moment. M-jy not 
he say the same of you ? The other day you 
used a wicked word. The other day, you 
disobeyed your father or your mother. The 
other day, you told a falsehood. Last night 
or this morning, you thought nothing about 
God your Maker. * The day before, I was 
equally thoughtless,' you perhaps own to your- 
self; so I was every day this week; and I 
have been angry, and peevish, and contentious.' 
If this is true, 1 am glad you own it, and know 



36 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

it. But is it being faithful like Christ to him 
that appointed him? 

Jesus was faithful to God while a little boy. 
'He never did any sin. He never uttered a 
falsehood. He was never disobedient, never 
envious, never unkind. When he became a 
man, tempted, and hated, and persecuted, I 
compare him to the bri2;ht sun shining out of 
clouds ; but while he was a child like one of 
you, and no trouble had come over him, 1 think 
of the gentle moon rising in a clear sky, and 
going through the heavens fnirer and lovelier 
than any star of the firmament. 

Yet I think he must have been sometimes 
sad J for I believe he knew why he came into 
the world. He must have wept sometimes for 
men's sins, sometimes for his own sufferings. 
Your mothers often tell you about things you 
never saw ; and so when her little son was 
alone, perhaps Mary told him who his father 
was, not Joseph the carpenter at Nazareth, but 
God the maker of the world ; how an angel 
came down from the highest heaven to tell 
of his birth, and how while he was an infant in 
the manger, angels sung his coming. Perhaps 
she told him of the star which guided the east- 
ern sages to tiie birth-place of the destined 
king, and of the words and the joy of Simeon 
and Anna when they saw the Messiah, and 






OXFORD SKETCHES. 



37 



ihen went to his Father. The Spirit might 
have discl(ysed these things to Jesus, or the 
Father who dwelt in him, and in whom he was. 
Then he must have known how toilsome his 
life should be, and how woful his death, forsa- 
ken even of God. But he was willing to bear all. 
The child Jesus was holy like the man, and 
faiiiiful to God ; so that he was prepared for 
his destiny. If when a child, he had shrunk 
back from duty or disliked the work of God, 
he would have sinned, and could not have be- 
come such a high-priest, holy, harmless, unde- 
filed, separate from sinners. Moses, 1 presume, 
was a good child; Samuel certainly was; so 
was Josiah ; so was Timothy ; so without 
doubt was Mary, the mother of Jesus. But 
each of these did wrong. They sinned when 
they were grown up ; so that Moses could not 
go into Canaan, and Samuel was punished in 
the wickedness of his sons, and Josiah was 
slain in battle, and all died. They did wrong 
also in childhood. Jesus Christ never did 
wrong. He kneiv no sin. 

Thus his faithfulness, completed at his 
death, began in his childhood, and continued 
through it. I wish you to be like him. Be 
like him, for he is lovely ; be like him, for he 
was faithful in working to save you. I told you 
of the babe at Bethlehem, of the child at Naz- 



38 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

aretli : — -now see the tPMcher going through all 
Gnllilee and Jndea without a })lace where lie 
could lay his head, doing good to all men, and 
leadina; their souls up to heaven ! See the vic- 
tim offered on mount Calvary, to make peace 
between earth and heaven ! See the Lord 
of o^lojy risins: out of a grpve to the Fa- 
ther's tiirone, now ruling the universe for the 
good of us, perishing sinners ! 

You are tempted to sin : remember Jesus 
tempted in all points like as we are^ yet vjithout 
sin. You repine at your condition ; he who 
was rich^ for our sakes became poor. You 
are ne2;lected by some of your companions ; 
he was despised and rejected of men. You 
are dissatisfied with many things about you ; 
he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
grief. You are a lost sinner; he came to seek 
and to save that which was lost — not to call 
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. You 
feel but a feeble flame of piety and virtue ; he 
will not quench the smoking flax. You are 
sensible of weakness ; he can empower you to 
do all things. Let these considerations en- 
dear Christ to you. Let these instances of his 
faithf ilness to God, manifested for your good, 
excite you to imitate his example ; to cherish 
and breathe forth his spirit ; to live in piety — 
ever looking unto Jesus, the author and fin- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



39 



isher of our faith, who, for the joy that was 
set before him, endured the cross, despising 
the shame, and is set down at the right hand 
^f the throne of God. 



Hymn of Angels to the Messiah. — Milton. 

Thee next they spng, of al' creation first, 
Begdtten Son, divine similitude, 
In whose conspicuous countenance, witVout cloud 
Made visible, the Alaught\' Father shines, 
"Whom else no creature can behold ; on thee 
Impressed, the effulgence of his glory abides, 
Transfused on tneehis ample spirt .ests, 
— No S'oner did thy de.. and only Son 
Perceive thee purposed not to doon. frail man 
So strjctly, but much more to pity incline ; 
He, to appe;. e thy wrath, an< end the strile 
Of mercy and jus ice in thy face discerned, 
Regardless of the Mi^s w^ ereiri he sat 
Second to thee, offered him elt to die 
For man's offence. O unexampled love* 
Love nowhere to be found ;ess than divine ! 
Fail Son of God, >aviour of men ! thy name 
Shall be the copious matter of my song 
Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise 
Forget, nor trom thy Father's praise disjoin. 



The Thanksgiving Evening. 

Aulumii had come with its beauty and its 
harvests, and was just passing away. The 
day which piety and the memory of our fathers 



40 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



conspire to bless, brought its religious dutie 
and its domestic joys. Our happy family gath 
ered about their evening fire, the parents to 
talk of the past, and the children to sport in 
their forgetfulness both of the past and the fu- 
ture. Mr. Greenwood and his wife casually 
alluded to the sufferings and contests, of which 
even Oxford had been the scene, in contrast 
with the repose which now spreads over our 
wijole country. One of the elder children over- 
heard it, and urged them to tell the tale of oth- 
er days. " We have heard of the Indians, and 
of the captivity of some white peo|)le, and of 
LovelFs fight ; and we will sit down all of us 
and listen to your story. Father, those In- 
dians are very cruel — don't you think they 
are .'' And it was right to punish them severe- 
ly for scalping men and women, and carrying 
them off into the vvoods. When I get my wood- 
en sword or gun in my hands, 1 sometimes 
call some object an Indian, and go to bat- 
tle with it, as the soldiers at training pretend 
to fight with each other. Oh, if I were a 
man, I should like to take such a gun as the 
soldiers have, and chase them away irom the 
country." 

How long the lad would have gone on in his 
heroic stiain, I cannot tell; but his mother in- 
terrupted him, exclaiming, " My dear son, the 



©XFORD SsKETCUES. 41 



ivork is done already. The Indian has fled, 
ke the striken deer, far into the wilderness, 
Dr the grave has covered him ; and 1 trust you 
will never he called to repel attack h'om hiai 
Dr any other enemy. For myst-ll 1 pity him 
rather thancensute ; anger and revenge I can- 
not feel ; i( he has done wrong, his punishment 

'tpas been sufficient — it is terrihie. Some thmk 
t tile curse ot God : 1 cannot — rather it is the 
i^raih of man employed mysteriously to ac- 
complish purposes which are yet concealed 
from our understanding. When I think of such 
hiiigs, 1 know iiothin^ to satisfy my mind 
3ut the sentiment you asked me to explain 
you the other day : 

1 

Enough for us to know that this dark state, 

In waj'ward passions lost, and vain pursuits, 

This infancy of being, cannot prove 

The final issue of the whorls of Cod, 

By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom form'd. 

There is a holier book than any of man's in- 
i^eulion, which assures me that God, who is 
[ove, reigns over all ; and in perplexing events, 
it is the most consolatory tiionght, *' Even 
io. Father, for so it seemed good in thy 
light.'' 

This language seemed to sober the little 
lero's martial spirit into a more mild, perhaps 

4* 



42 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

I may csW'ii philosophical feeling, and incliiccd 
hiin to ask the cause of the wars in which we 
had been engaged wdth the wild man of the for- 
est. 

" Call your brothers and sisters, my son," 
said Mrs. Greenwood, '* and let us all sit down 
by your father's side, and bear him tell the 
whole." 

" I have often thought," Mr. Greenwood 
observed, as the children were gathering from 
their sport, " I have often thought it would be 
better, that our children should never hear of 
such events. They excite the imagination too 
much ; they wake the feelings to a feverish 
sensibility ; they can hardly be described with- 
out producing emotions contrary to the humil- 
ity, the meekness, the forgiving spirit of Christ 
— and, w^here they do not infuse a warlike tem- 
per, they leave dark impressions on the mind, 
to rise in later life like horrid dreams or the 
ideas of ghosts. Still it is impossible to con- 
ceal the horrors of war ; they will be known at 
any rate ; and I think it best to set them forth 
in their true form, before they are presented 
in the delusive aspect which the world gives 
them." 

The whole group now sat in silence, looking' 
wishfully for the dark tale. *' My children," 
— it was a verv serious tone and countenance 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 43 

vvitli which their father spoke, and they began 
to feel wonder mingled with curiosity — '' my 
children, I cannot tell you of any thing connec- 
ted with war, as most men would. It is not 
what it seems: it is not the great and glorious 
event which history and poetry have described 
it. I am astonished at the folly and the deprav- 
ity from which it has arisen. We commonly 
feel in thinking of the grandeur of batde, as we 
feel in listening to the roar of the ocean, the 
deep voice of the wind, or the heavy thunder ; 
connecting what we see or hear with the idea 
of boundless power and wisdom. We ought 
to repress this feeling by remembering the pas- 
sions in which war takes its rise, and the mise- 
ries and the vices in which it ends. I would 
not be censorious ; but, I confess, my first feel- 
ing at the thought of war is indignation at the 
injustice and cruelty of men ; this feeling soon 
subsides, however, into regret that they should 
suffer themselves to be deluded by false views; 
and into pity, that while they imagine their ef- 
fojts and sufferings to be for liberty and their 
country, they are enduring all for the gratifica- 
tion and glory of a few. 

" In the events you ask me to describe, we 
have a manifestation of what war is in its spirit; 
though they seem so trivial, .vhen compared 
with the greater events which history describes, 



44 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

as scarce to find a place in the records of our 
country. Yet tliey tiiay teach you the lesson 
you should learn from all history, — disclosing 
the dispositions of men, the evils oj hostility, and 
the excellence of a mild and pacific spirit. — 1 
will begin with 

Segar^s Captivity.* 

" Near the close of the n^volution, while the 
region of tiie Androscoggin was thinly settled, 
as a few white men were employed in labor, 
several Indians rushed on them irom the neigh- 
boring woods, and secured them as prisoners. 
The house of one o( the captives was near; 
they entered an« plundered it. The woman of 
the house, after securing some valuable articles 
by her fearless and sagacious conduct, conceal- 
ed herself in the forest. One of the captives 
escaped ; the rest were carried away by the 
savages. They were three ; the name of the 
one Segar, and of the others Clark. Before 
they lelt the inhabited region, they killed two 
men whom they met, and took another captive. 
They then allowed one of the three whom they 

* For the facts contained in this narrative, 1 am indebt- 
ed to a pamphlet published at i aris in the year 1825, of 
which I have attempted to give the outline, so far as the 
captivity is coneerned, without addition. The writer is 
now living with his family in Bethel. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 45 

had first, taken, to escape ; at least, he availed 
himself of an opportunity, and returned to his 
home in safety. With the remainder, the sav- 
ages pursued their way to Canada. 

" To deeds like this, the Indians were insti- 
gated by the enemy with whom we were at 
that time contending. But they were well fit- 
ted for them, both by their usual character, 
and by the nature of the intercourse — a series 
of mutual aggressions — which they held with 
the fathers of New-England. They aie oUen 
described as naturally revengeful beyond men 
of European origin ; many aiso tliink them en- 
dowed with highei gifts of intellect. The for- 
mer opinion is founded on their long recollec- 
tion of injuries inflicted on themselves and their 
friends, and the unyieldiijg perseverance with 
which they pursue the victim of their wrath. 
The latter idea has no other ground, liiat I am 
aware, than the sagacity of their Cfuusels and 
ttie eloquence of their speeches. For myself, 
I cannot discover proof of their superiority in 
mind, or of their deeper spirit of revenge. — 
True, they have peculiarities, like most na- 
tions ; they have furnished speeches of great 
simplicity and beauty ; they are sagacious per- 
haps in war; but their style and thought are 
formed by circumstances, and where distin- 
guished from those of others, prove nothing 



46 OXFOR» SKETCHES. 

more than a difference of culture and habits. 
They abound in (igurc ; this, to say the least, 
may rise h'om an imperfection in tlieir language 
joined with their ignorance of spiritual and ab- 
stract ideas. Their conciseness may come like- 
wise Irom education rather than nature, — from 
the reserve \\ hid) their suuatiofi has produced, 
more than fiom higher energy of native talent. 
Their mode of warfare is very different from 
the Emopean ; yet it is decidedly inferior, so 
far as sagacity is concerned, — relying more on 
physical strength and agility, less on mind, or 
broad and tliorough views of peculiar exigen- 
cies, and the force of thought which is some- 
times demanded to counteract a greater power 
of arms. This, however, is the result of cir- 
cumstances, not a fruit of natural incapacity, 
and lequires of us, not to believe them set low- 
er than ourselves by the common parent, but 
to piesume that th(?y are not superior. They 
may be on a level,— -capable, by the prc'gress 
ot intellectual culture, of equalling the Europe- 
an and American. 

" As to Indian revenge, we must remember 
that it has been described by enemies, not by 
friends, and that our injustice has planted in 
them, as tlieir cruelty once did in many of us, 
an inextinguishable hostility. Every account 
almost of Indian revenge must be receiv^ed with 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 47 

at abatements ; the evil which calls it forth 
!st be esteemed greater than the American 
ui! )vvs, and the passion itself less bitter and less 
cruel. 

" Tfiongh I cannot believe the original in- 
habitants of this continent essentially different, 
so far as nature is concerned, from nations of 
the same class with ourselves, 1 still deem it 
futile to doubt the obvious fact, that there is a 
great difference produced by variety oi circum- 
stance. Agriculture and mechanic arts, reli- 
gion and literature are little known among them. 
The excitement of the chace, the patient la- 
bor of fishing, and intervals of indolent repose, 
divide their time. Like men in all ages, they 
turn their arms from the wild-beast to their own 
species, and count military prowess and skill 
the highest glory ; but from their mode of liv- 
inii;, their scattered and wandering life, and 
their division into s nail tribes, they have adopt- 
|ed peculiarities even in conductins; war. They 
formerly used the bow, not the musket ; they 
now wield the tomahawk instead of the sword ; 
they contend on foot, th'^y skulk in the woods, 
and fiojht in a scattered mmn !r ; for they are 
not accustomed to horsemanship, they have not 
large, ooen plains, on whicli they can gather. 
B It the spirit, the principles, tlie ends of war, 
are the same which have been felt in all coun.- 



48 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

tries and times. With them, as with the 
Greeks, the Romans, the modern Europeans 
and our own countrymen, war is mnn himself, 
wrought into fury, ambitious of power, or cov- 
etous of ^ain. 

" In the case of captivity, like that I have 
mentioned, the great motive, I presume, was 
the desire of sain. Advantage was taken of 
tlie fierce spirit of the natives, and, probably, 
of the revenge aroused by past injuries, in ha- 
rassing our frontier settlements. A bounty was 
furnished for the very indulgence of their pas- 
sions, — for the destruction of life, however in- 
nocent the victims might be even of any de- 
sign unfriendly to the power, by which the sav- 
age was employed." 

" And what," asked the children, " was the 
course of the captives on their way to Canada ?" 

" The first night," replied Mr. Greenwood, 
"they spent in a camp or hut occupied by a 
farmer who was preparing for himself an abode 
among the mountains. He was absent, and 
happily escaped the cruelty of the enemy. — 
The captives were forced to lie down with the 
Indians surrounding them, as a precaution a- 
gainst their escape, and after rising m the morn- 
ing, were bound to prevent them from attack- 
ing or eluding enemies. The night must have 
been one of the deepest gloom ; nor could the 



I 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 49 

day, presenting no other prospect than of a te- 
dious march through pathless forests, removing 
them farther from their friends and bringing 
nearer the event, whatever it might be, which 
awaited them, lighten the burden that oppressed 
their minds. 

*' Eirlv in the morning they were led up the 
river. Tliov passed through Giiead, a town- 
ship lyins: on both sides of the Androscoggin, 
and opening a narrow but fertile valley between 
the mountains. Thence they proceeded to 
Shelburne. They had as yet travelled on die 
southern side of the river ; but being told by 
some children whom they met on their way, 
that a party of white men greater than their 
own were gathered and armed at the next 
house, the Indians, after loading their prisoners 
with packs and tying their arms fast, required 
them to pass to the northern bank through 
which the course was direct to the wilderiiess. 
The report of the children was erroneous; 
there were not ten men in the place ; yet the 
fear excited in the minds of the savages may 
have saved the few by whom it was occupied 
from distress and perhaps deadi. The report 
increased, however, the labor of the prisoners : 
the river, at the spot where diey entered it 
loaded and bound, has been seldom, if ever 



oO OXFORD SKETCHES. 

besides, forded. Still it was passed in safely 
by the whole company. 

" The next night was spent near a large 
mountain in the midst of the forest. After the 
break of day, they ascended to its summit, 
whence the whole extent of forest, bounded by 
the sky as it seemed to rest itself on the moun- 
tains swelling in the distance, opened amidst 
the rays of morning. It was not an hour to 
take into the soul the grandeur of the prospect. 
The boundless works of God were about them, 
but [he sufferers felt the oppression of man ; 
what was bright in the aspect of nature reveal- 
ed anew the darkness that covered their souls ; 
amidst the harmonies of the creation, the heart 
responded but to the voice of solitude and 
gloom which rose from the dark valley or the 
dreary cliff. Tortured by anxiety for the fu- 
ture, they could hardly regret the toil in which 
a momentary oblivnon of sorrow might be gain- 
ed : They were hurried through the wilderness 
toward the Umbagog. Before reaching it, 
they were permitted to rest for sometime, and 
strengthen themselves for future labor. 

" At their place of rest, the Indians added 
new horrors to their condition. One, having 
stripped a piece of bark from a spruce tree, 
unbound the hands of Mr. Segar, requiring him 
to write on it, tiiat if overtaken by the Indians, 



©XFORD SKETCHES. 51 

the captives would be slain. They drew three 
scalps from their packs, one of which the pris- 
oners knew to have been taken after their own 
capture ; whence the others were obtained, 
they were uncertain — left to imagine them 
relics of friends from whom they had been sev- 
ered. Setting the prisoners apart from each 
other, they now began ihe horrid forms of the 
powow.^ They took the hair of the scalps in 

* This teim has been applied both to certain rites 
practised by the Indians, and to a class of people whom 
they imagined to be endowed with peculiir power. — 
Hubbard, in his History of New England, (c. vii, p. 34) 
USPS the term in the latter sense, and describes the 
pauivowes as performing the offices of the Im ian relig- 
ion and as sought for " council in all kind of evils both 
corporeal and civil." Brainerd, at a later day, speaks 
of them as feared for their supposed power of enchant- 
ment, (Diary for Sept. 2, 1744.) It i?*, I presume, to 
what in the other use of the word is called the powow, 
that Brainerd alludes earlier in his Diary, when he speaks 
of a contemplated meeting for " an idolatrous feast and 
dmnce.'' Segar says nothing of a feast connected with 
the scene of whi h he was witness ; nor does Symms 
in his account of Lovell's Fight : the former speaks of 
leaping, screaming, and other acts of a similar kind , the 
latter, of '' their striking upon the ground, and other odd 
motions," of which he has given no desciiption. Prob- 
ably the feast formed a part of the ceremony, when it 
could be obtained, but might be omitted as not indispen- 
sable to its efficacy. — The powow seems to have been 
designed for a religious rite, though resembling an in- 
cantation rather than the worship of a good Spirit. I 
have not alluded to it in the account of ttie contest at 
Lovell's Pond, thou<i;h aware of its being once practised, 
because I was ignorant of the connection which it might 



52 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

their teeth, shook their heads, and broke forth 
into loud exclamations, leaping from rock to 
rock, and, we are assured, passing conception 
in the hideousness of their whole aspect and 
manner." 

"From whom had they taken the two scalps ?" 
Mrs. Greenwood and the children earnestly in- 
quired. 

" From one man whom, without the knowl- 
edge of the captives, they slew on their way 
from Bethel, and from another whom they met 
in the woods before they reached the Andros- 
coggin. 

" From the scene of the poivow, they went 
onward to the Umbagog, reaching it the fifth 
day of the captivity. The Indians had here 
three canoes made of spruce bark, in which, 
with the prisoners, they passed over the Lake. 
Beyond the Umbagog, they proceeded in their 
canoes, up a small river supposed to be the 
Magalloway. Alter leaving this stream, they 
took their course by land over high and rough 
mountains and through deep swamps, weary 
with exertion, and faint for want of food, till 
they reached the waters of the St. Francois. 
The mind, amidst such scenes, sometimes sum- 
have with other events o( the day, — whether designed 
to terrify or enchant the English, or to invoke spiritual 
agents to join them in the encounter. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 53 

mons itself to unwonted energy, gathering hope 
fi"oni the resolution which danger besjets, and 
imparts a portion of its own strength to the en- 
feebled body. Were it not so, these captives 
must, it would seem, have yielded themselves 
to despair and death. After passing the Lake, 
the Indians gave diem flour, and pieces of 
moose-flesh, still hairy and unfit for food. Long 
abstinence had excited appetite, but they could 
eat litde of the miserable provision ; and yet it 
was the last almost w4iich they obtained for sev- 
eral days. So extreme did their hunger be- 
come, that they one night roasted and ate the 
mocasins which the Indians had thrown away. 
The Indians also burned the hair from a moose- 
skin, then boiled it, and gave a part to the pris- 
oners. They continued in this destitute state 
till the thiid day of their passage down the St. 
Francois, where they came to three canoes 
which the Indians had left on its bank, furnish- 
ed with corn and fishspears : the former was 
boiled, and distributed to the parly ; with the 
latter, they took fishes from the waters. At 
length they reached a dwelling-house, where 
their hunger, abated before, was satisfied by the 
best of food, milk and bread. 

" From this house the distance to the village 
whither they were to be carried, was not two 
miles. According; to what, I believe, is die 



54 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

custom with Indians, they uttered loud excla- 
mations as they drew near the village, announ- 
cing their arrival, and were soon answered by 
its inhabitants. The party entered the settle- 
ment in the evening amidst a light scarcely less 
than of day, coming from innumberable torches. 
The captives were soon conducted by a British 
officer, to the guard-house, at once to secure 
them as prisoners and to save them from the vio- 
lence of the savages, who riot in and triumph 
over the sufferers, the scalps and the plunder. 
" Fourteen days passed from their capture 
to their arrival at this village. Here they were 
guarded two days, then embarked in canoes, 
accompanied by two Indians and an interpre- 
ter, for Montreal. One ot them, a negro slave, 
was sold ; the others were imprisoned forty 
days at Montreal, thence removed to an Island 
at the distance of more than forty miles from 
thit city, and imprisoned for many months, ei- 
during in both places, besides the loss of liber- 
ty, the sufferings peculiar to enemies taken in 
war. Their prospect was first brightened by 
intelligence of the slu'i^nder ol Cornwallis, in 
consequence of which, arrangements were made 
for their removal with other prisoners. They 
had been either traversing the wilderness guid- 
ed by savi'ge enemies ; or enduring the evils 
of imprisonment more than a year ; and it 



0XFORD SKETCHES. 56 

could not be with other feelings than those of 
rapture that they set sail from Quebec lor Bos- 
ton. Their voyage was sale and pleasant, and 
the very night of their landing, they hastened 
to Newton, the birth-place of Segar, and still 
the home of his parents. No intelligence of the 
events which succeeded their capture, had been 
received ; they were the heralds of their own 
fate ; they were met as though risen from the 
dead." 

The whole family listened whh delight to the 
happy issue of an event of which the progress 
had been so calamitous. It is but a moment, 
however, that children are satisfied with the 
tale that has been told. They call at once lor 
another ; they do so the more earnestly now, 
because they are expecting the description 
which IVJr. Greenwood soon began of 

LovelVs Fight. 

" It is with poor reason that we charge the 
Indians with [jeculiar barbarity in then' hostile 
incursions. I'he history of Ca[)t. Lovell is one 
among the disgraceful monuments ot ouj own 
cruelty and wickedness. He was encouraged 
to the enterprize which ended so disastrously 
both to himseir and to the enemy by the suc- 
cess of two earlier expeditions in New Hamp- 



56 OXFORD SKETCHES, 

shire. With a company of thirty men he went 
to the northward of Winnipisseogee Lake, and, 
discovering a wigwam in which were an Indian 
and a boy, he slew, and, according to the cus- 
tom of the times, scalped^ the foimer, and car- 
ried the latter to Boston." 

" What was the reason of such a cruel cus- 
tom ?" inquired the eldest son. 

" It was, I presume," replied Mr. Green- 
wood, " to prove the number of the slain. If 
the bare declaration that so many were destroy- 
ed, could be received as proof of the fact,decep- 
tion might often be practised, and the bounty ^ 
as it was termed, would fall to those by whom 
il was not earned. For this exploit of Lovell, 
a gratuity, additional to the stipulation, was be- 
stowed. — The second enterprize secured ten 
scalps token from the same number of Indians, 
whom they found asleep, and slew in the midst 
of the nipjht. It is with indignation and shame 
1 think of the bi^ave company, as a reverend 
historian calls it, entering Dover in triumph 
with the scaips stretched on hoops and raised 
on poles, thence marching proudly to Boston, 
and each receiving Irom the public treasury a 
hundred pounds for his share in the work of 
death I 

" Lovell hoped to take more scalps — I would 
speak gently of those who are gone to their great 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 57 

account ; but it is better to deal fairly with the 
dead, than to wrong the truth — Lovell hoped 
for scalps and gain. — No doubi, like others of 
our countrymen, he felt a nobler impulse. 
Man seldom engages in atrocious deeds without 
apology to his conscience and his better feel- 
ings. The Indians had done us wrong ; the 
guilt was not all on our side ; the guilt in every 
contest, perhaps, is shared by both parties. 
The aggressions of the natives endangered our 
settlements ; so that the government in encour- 
aging the cruel assauhs of the white upon the 
red population, as well as the guides of those 
assaults, believed them essential to the safety, 
perhaps the existence of the provinces. Let 
us then ascribe to them patriotism though mis- 
informed, and energy however perverted ; let 
us trust they were less covetous than brave, 
less revengelul and cruel to the enemy than de- 
voted to the welfare of their Iriends and homes. 
Under the infltience of such com})licated feel- 
ings, Lovell, with a company increased to more 
than forty, marched a third time on the six- 
teenth of April, 1725, to attack a village oi the 
Pequawkets. 

" This tribe, once large and powerful, now 
totally extinct, inhabited the region bordering 
on Saco River, at no great distance from its 
source. The village, near which the battle was 



58 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

fought, stood, I believe, on the beautiful plain 
upon which the present village of Fiyeburgh is 
built. Fiyeburgh is a town through which I 
])ave often passed. For a mile or two from 
the village, as I approached it from the east, 
the road is through a wooded and unsettled 
]>lam. The scene is solitary and gloomy. I 
reached at length the open ground which spreads 
iar about it, on the left, little cultivated and bar- 
ren, but on the right sloping toward the river 
and forming a large and fertile interval. The 
village, standing alone in its rural beauty and 
surrounded by scenery thus wildly contrasted, 
rose before me. Its Indian relics and associa- 
tions are among its greatest peculiarities. In 
the Museum of its Academy, I have seen the 
very gun, it is said, which more than a century 
since brought down the last Chief of the Pe- 
quawkets. 

" Paugus fell on the border of a pond lying 
ab.out a mile from the villa2;e, and now bear- 
ing the name of the English captain. Ox- 
ford had not then a white inhabitant, and it was 
certainly hazardous in Lovell to pierce so deep- 
ly a wilderness of which the only limits that 
man had given were the scattered settlements 
near the ocean, and the few towns then opened 
in New Hanspshire. The nearest place of 
safety to which he could resort, was a Fort 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 59 

which he had himself built near Ossi[>ee Pond, 
where, besides one sick man and his surgeon, 
he left eight of his company for a guard. Two, 
disabled by disease from proceeding, had be- 
fore abandoned the perilous adventure. Thir- 
ty~four accompanied him to the scene of action. 
The night preceding the eighth of May, he en- 
camped l)y the side of the pond which has since 
taken l)is name. Apprehensions had been feh 
for a day or two, that the Indians were about 
them J the company were alarmed this night, 
hut could discover no traces of the enemy. 
During the prayers of the morning, a gun was 
heard, and an Indian was soon after seen stand- 
ing, more than a mile from them on a point 
of land which runs into the pond. He was 
supposed to have been employed for the pur- 
pose of decoying the company ; and from his 
position it was presumed a hostile party was in 
their front. It was a fearful moment. In the 
midst of an engagement, the tumult, the ardor, 
the impetuous action, all aid in giving a sort of 
calm, a thon2;htlessness at least of danger, to 
tne mind. But in the moment which precedes 
combat, as the soul feels the rush of conflicting 
emotions, — the memory of home with all its 
loves and joys, the uncertainty of retaining the 
life which has always been sweet, and the as- 
surance that of the ranks now breathing and 



GO OXFORD SKETCHES. 

hish in hope, many will soon fall beneath the 
hands of men, accompanied often by fears of a 
coming retribution, — the heart faints, the face 
gathers paleness. In such a moment, the final 
question is proposed, — Shall we seek the ene- 
my ? Lovell fears the resuh. His company 
urge the contest, — ' We have come far into the 
wilderness to meet the enemy ; we have pray- 
ed God to set them against us in fight ; he has 
brought us near them, and we would see them 
face to face. He, who led Joshua against the 
cities of Canaan, and under whom the stars in 
their courses fought against Sisera, will stay us 
up in the day of battle, and give us the victory 
for his name's sake, over the heathen who wor- 
ship him not. Or if we die, 'tis for our coun- 
try and our friends ; it is for their saiety and 
om- glory ; disgrace is in flight, — who will wel- 
come the coward home ? who will tell his praise 
to posterity ? — glory is in victory or death.' — 
Such Is the decision. The stout heart of Lov- 
ell does not quail, though his spirit is prophetic 
of the end. They now left their packs and 
marched cautiously forward, intending to gain 
the point on which the Indian had stood. Hav- 
ing advanced about two miles, they espied him 
going toward the village, laid themselves se- 
cretly down in wait for him, and fired. He 
returned tlie fire, and wounded two men se- 



©XFORD SKETCHES. 61 

verely, one of whom was Lovoll himself. By 
another fiie, the Indian was slain. His scalp 
was also taken. 

" Lovell fiad been deceived. The Indians 
were not in his front, and he turned back toward 
his place of encampment. Meanwhile as a 
I par^y of Indians, led by Paugus and Wahwa, 
I were retiirnins: from a scout down the Saco, 
they discovered the track of the English, and 
followed it to the spot where it ended the night 
before. The packs, ihey removed and coun- 
ted, and finding that Lovell's company was less 
than their own, they resolved to wait in ambush 
and risk an encounter. The soldiers reached 
I the camp, and were looking for their packs. 
; Suddenly the war-shout rose ; the eneiny rush- 
ed furiously onward, and were readily and 
fiercely met. The battle commenced on a 
plain thinly covered with oine-trees, and open- 
ing a hk ground for both parties. The Indians 
had the advantage, however, of selecting both 
their time and their position. Lovell, with sev- 
[ eral of his men fell near the first onset. Sus- 
I tained by these auspices, and emboldened by 
superiority of numbers, the enemy attempted 
to surround the white men. To prevent this 
movement, the latter retreated toward the pond, 
and took a position leaving its whole extent in 
their rear, a rocky point which jutted into it on 
6 



&2 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

their lefi, and a deep brook on the right, while of 
the front, part was protected by a bog and part 
open to the enemy. Here they admitted no 
alternative but victory or destruction. They 
could not retreat — their position made it im- 
possible ; they were altogetlier without susten- 
ance ; they could not surrender, though urged 
both by suggestions of hope and by exclama- 
tions of terror. The contest beg^.n about ten 
in the morning ; it drew to its close at twilight. 
The war-cry grew fainter ; the killed and 
wounded warriors of the forest were removed ; 
the slain of the Americans were left unscalped. 
The survivors of Lovell's band began near mid- 
night to examine their condition. Three, still 
living, were unable to remove ; twenty took 
their course homeward. Of these, four were 
left exhausted about a mile and a half from the 
scene of the engagement ; two recovered, how- 
ever, and reached their homes in safety. An- 
other was lost also on their way to the Ossipee 
Fort. * It had been hoped that from this place 
a recruit might be obtained to aid in bringing 
back the wounded who were left in the woods. 
But the Fort was deserted before their arrival. 
A soldier (the only fugitive of the company) 
fled at the beginning of the engagement to the 
Ossipee, and giving an exaggerated account of 
the events at the Saco, induced the whole par- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 63 

ly to fly precipitately from ilieir post. Tlius 
the only hope of ministering aid to the aban- 
doned sufferers, was cut off. — The loss of the 
Indians was greater than that of the Americans ; 
so great indeed that the power of the Pequaw- 
kets seems tK) have expired with the last of their 
Chiefs." 

" You have given us," said Mrs. Greenwood, 
as her hushand closed his nairative, " the sen- 
timents oi" Lovell's men as they went to battle. 
My feelings are rather on the side of the In- 
dians, and I have been imagining what their 
chiei migiit have said to his followers on the 
eve of contest ; — ' The white man has lifted his 
sword against us. We will meet it. The sons of 
the Great Spirit shall not fear. This is our l&nd ; 
this river is ours ; these are oui mountains. The 
Avhite man never chased the deer in these woods. 
The smoke of his wigwam never rose in this Vul- 
Jey. Our fathers lived under this sky. The wliite 
man would drive us from their graves. Our 
neighbors have fallen by his musket. ^^ e may 
fall too. We will go freely to the land of spir- 
its. See ye the sun in the east .'' Paugus may 
not see it go down. It will go down in blood. 
See ye the blasted pine-tree ? The lightning 
touched it from the clouds. A lightning has 
darted on us. We had grown up to the sky ; 
our branches spread over all these mountains, 
and touched the rivers and the great waters. 



64 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

We are fallen. The lightning from the east 
has struck our trunks. I see the red man go- 
ing far to the west — across the bioad riveiS — ■ 
and perishing. fVe will die by our fatliers' 
graves. We will tell them in the happy field's, 
that we fell for their children. They shall 
honor us. The wiiite man shall remember the 
warriors of Paugus !' — The regret, alas, is un- 
availing, that so many wh-> knew not the Gos- 
pel, should fall by dis(.;ipies of Jesus, the meek 
and holy Saviour, " whose servants may not 
fight, because his kingdom is not of this world." 
" My feelings," said Mr. Greenwood, " are 
not different horn yours. And I trust they 
are beginning to be acknowledged more gen- 
erally as the sentiments ol Christianity. Yet 
so imperfect were once the views even of re- 
ligious teachers, that at the time of this battle a 
young preacher was with the company ; who, 
after assisting to scalp the first Indian that was 
slain, and fighting with lion-hearted valor till 
the middle of the afternoon, received a severe 
wound, and when unable to join in the conflict, 
encouraged his companions by prayer to Heav- 
en. He went with them in their departure, 
but failed after travelling a little while, and 
was left with three others in the woods. They 
regained strength to go forward, until Mr. 
Frye (this was the name of the chaplain) found 



OXrORD SKETCHES. 65 

iiiiiiselt exhausted, and desired them to leave 
him. At this hour, he requested one of his 
companions, if" he ever reached home, to go 
to his father, and carry his last message, — 
'• Tell him, 1 have not long to live ; in a few 
hours I shall be in eternity ; but I am not a- 
Iraid to die ! Alone in the deep forest, beneath 
the outstretched sky, he breathed out his 
spirit." 

"Another spirit went soon after him", said 
Mrs. Greenwood. " It is a sad, wild tale I saw 
in my youth, from which 1 knew their sorrows. 
'Phey were the victims of an afTeclion which, 
as the fair and faithful girl was poor, the pride 
and wealth of Frye's family forbade him to 
cherish. In the midst ol the young man's 
grief, he heard of Lovell's adventure, and re- 
solved to share in h. He was of Andover. 
There is an elm tree, yet standing, i believe, 
in that town, which he set out a few days before 
his departure, asking his friends, if he did not 
return — and he thought he should not, — io take 
good care of it in memory of him. The event 
agreed with the feeling ; and when he died, the 
true heart he was forced to leave, felt itself 
broken also, and soon laid its sorrows down in 
the 2;rtive." 

" This," added Mr. Greenwood, " is one 
q{ the most touching details of the whole af- 
6-»^ 



66 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

fair.* There are others, however, of less feel- 
ing, but painlully descriptive of the liorr.Hs 
ol war. Two ol the wounded who were left 
in the wilderness recovejed. Their names 
were Davis and Jones. The former arrived at 
the Fort, where he iound provision, and gain- 
ed strength to proceed to Berwick. Jones lol- 
lowed the Saco River, and arrived at Bicide- 
ford. His subsistence had been gatheied from 
the shrubs which grew wild m llie swamps and 
woods. His food, after it was eaten, came out 
of a wound which he received in the body. — 
There was one Kies, whose lot was less se- 
vere. Exhausted by the loss of blood horn 
three wounds, he crept to the side of tlie 
pond, and finding a canoe rolled himself in- 
to it. The wind was favorable, and drove 
him several miles toward the Fort. He re- 
covered, and with eleven others, arrived at 
Dunstable, the town from which their march 

* 'Ihis fact is taken from a beautiful art!cle in the Bos- 
ton Commercial Gazette of 1 4th Octo'er 1824. In the 
same article, there is an allusion to the' description of 
the battle given by Viator, giving him the preference 
to all other historians of the event. Ihis description ap- 
peared, I thmk in 1824, in the Oxford Observer, tut 
1 have been unable to find it. and therefore relied on 
Belknap and especially Symms whose paniphlet furn- 
ished Bel: nap wi h much informaton, and who r'.ceiv- 
ed the detail he has so artlessly givtn, from the lips of 
survivinof combatants. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. t>7 

commenced, the thirteenth of May, five days 
after the battle. Lieut. VVymyii, wiio succeed- 
ed Lovell in the command, with three com- 
panions, reachetl the same place two Gays la- 
ter. They had been fr(jm Saturday mornmg 
till Wednesday witliont food ot any kind. 

" The savageness of the military temper is 
seen in the language of Robbms, an officer who 
was left mortally wounded on the held, with his 
gun leaded at liis request, and laid beside iiim : 
— " The Indians will come in tlie mornit;g to 
scalp me — 1 will kill one more if i can." I 
think it savage ; and yet, as seems to me, it is 
not below many of the treasured sayings of 
heroes in what nien have chosen to call moral 
grandeur. : 

" Many of the Indians were known to Lov- 
ell's men ; they even conversed logtther du- 
ring the battle. Tiiere was one Chamberlain, 
a man of great strength and courage, who 
went down at the sanje time with Paugus 
to wash his gun in the pond, and assured the 
Chief that lie should destrc^y Lim. Ihe men- 
ace was retiirned. Tlie guns ol both were pre- 
pared, loaded and discliarged : Paugus fell. 
The event endangered the safety oi Cham- 
berlain. To save himself hom the vengeance 
of the sons and friends of the fallen chiti, he 



68 OXFORD SKETCHES, 

slew more than one of them who souj^hl his 
death after the return of peace. 

" Such are some of the fruits and passions of 
war. The cliarm wliich it })as to so many, 
comes h'om seeing its outward splendor sepa- 
rate from these details. The volcano is sub- 
lime in its eruptions; but wo to him who ven- 
tures within the sweep oi its scathing flames. 

" I remember, my dear children," added 
Mr. Greenwood, aiier a short pause, " I re- 
member when I was young like you, to have 
heard my grandfather tell this tale as he 
sat in his old arm-chair and we gathered 
about him, still and earnest to catch his tre- 
mulous words. Then he was weak, and the 
bride of hii? youth had gone to the grave, 
stricken in years. He was the play-mate in 
boyhood, of some who went out and fought 
with Lovell ; and they told him all. My fa- 
ther also knew the captives who were seiz- 
ed at Bethel. He was then young, and had 
the story from their own lips. How few sur- 
vivors of those days remain ! You, my chil- 
dren, are coming to possess a goodlier in- 
heritance. Let it be a part of your even- 
ing prayers, to thank God that war has ceas- 
ed so long, and to ask tht t it may cease 
forever. It will come to an end we know 
fiill well ; — may the day be hastened ! Our fa- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



09 



ilieis spent ibis day in praise, while danger, 
and. tears, and death, were with them. Our 
posterity may spend it in happiei thankfulness, 
amidst the blessings of universal peace and 
love. Let us, meanwliile, bless God for the 
repose he has already given to the world, 
and seek and pray that it may extend and 
be perpetual. Blessed^ om Lord assures us, 
are the peace-makers, for they shall be called 
the children, of God.^^ 

Hope of future improvement. — Campbell, 

Hope ! when T mcrirn with sympathizing mind. 
The wrongs of fate, tli»- woes of human kind, 
Thy blisstul omens bid my spiiit see 
The boundless fields of ra- ture yet to be ; 
I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan,' 
And learn the future b> the pastot luan. 
Come, bright improvement ! en the car of time, 
And rule the spacious w^«rld from clime to cliiiie ; 
Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, 
Trace every wave, and culture every s! ore. 
On Erie's banks, wlierf tigers steal along, 
And the dread Indian chants a dismal snng, 
Where human fiends on midnight errands wa'k, 
And bathe in brains the munierous tomahawk ; 
Then shall the flocks on t'ymy pasture stray, 
And shepherds dance at summer's opening day ; 
Each wandering genius of the lonely glen 
S^ all start to view the glittc mc haunt? of men ; 
And silent watch, on woodland heights around. 
The village curfew as it tolls profoHnd. 



70 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

The JVeiv Yearns Morning. 

"I wish you a happy new year," was the 
earliest and repeated sound which echoed 
through the humble dwelling of the Green- 
woods. The morning found them happy; 
the wish was sincere for many future days. 

" That you may be happy," said their moth- 
er, "you must be good ; you must have kind 
and cheerful tempers, and think of God in all 
his works. If you have gone through the last 
year with such feelings, this, I trust, will be 
what you wish. Let us sit down, and talk 
over some of the scenes of the past, and raise 
our thoughts, as we review them, to the God 
of love." 

All were glad at the proposal, and gathered 
around their mother to tell their stories or to 
catch at least her smile. The eldest was 
George, a pleasant, thoughtful lad of about 
fourteen years old, a good scholar, and modest 
withal as boys of sweet temper and thinking 
minds commonly are. Yet as he had been ac- 
customed on account of his age to take the lead 
among his brothers and sisters, he learned to 
throw an air of command even into his gentle 
looks and words. Eliza was the image of 
George ; she loved him most fervently ; his 
thoughts were hers, his wishes hers, she could 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 71 

deny him nothing. When he was not more 
than five years old, he would lead her into the 
meadow, and pluck flowers for her, and they 
would sit down on the green bank in each 
other's arms, and tell their infant tales ; and as 
they came to the house so tender and affection- 
ate, their mother smiled and wept in the bliss 
of love. Then there were Henry and William, 
with two sisters too young to share in their 
morning's conversation. 

" Let us go through the whole in order," 
said Mrs. Greenwood. " Come, George, let 
us hear something of what you have seen, and 
done, and felt the last year." 

*' What I have thought most about," said 
George, " is 

Ati Evening Walk. 

I took it last summer with two or three of 
my school-mates and our teacher. It was in 
Waterford. You remember the Flat, as they 
call it ; it was about two miles from the Flat, 
on a hill which rises above it to the north, and 
from which we could see much of the town, 
besides many other places about it. We first 
went to a beautiful grove in a pasture near a 
quarter of a mile from the road ; then we turn- 
ed back and went up the hill to the west. The 



72 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

land wliere tlie grove has grown up, was all 
cleared once ; but the owner let the trees cover 
it again, and 1 wished men would do so often- 
er. For it is a very fine place ; the trees do 
not stand too thick ; the ground was strewed 
with leaves, whicli fell in the fall, with fiesh 
grnss and wild fl(»vvers spriniring up among 
them ; the grass and green shrubs grew every 
where around. Tiiere were many rocks in 
the grove, where the sheep would go at noon, 
and lie down on them under the shade. The 
cattle would sleep there too, and be cool when 
the sun was high and the air heated. A little 
brook out of which they would drink, flowed 
in a vi!loy near tlie shade. There were pla- 
ces also where the children used to piny ; they 
would make two or three parties ; one party 
would ero to a large rock over which the trees 
hung their branches for a roof, and the others 
to rocks not far off; or they would find where 
two or three trees rose from one root and left 
an open phce between their trunks ; and here 
they would sit as if they were famihes, or visit 
from one house, as they called it, to another. 
Just to the north, there is a farm with the 
house standing alone near a large orchard ; a 
good man who once owned and took care of 
it, became poor, and, after he was old and 
his wife dead, gave it up and went out of his 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 73 

neighborhood and town — to die. Higher up 
the hill, we saw the chimney and roof of anoth- 
er farm-house ; and to the south and east we 
looked on many farms and houses, hills, val- 
leys, ponds and forests. All was calm and 
pleasant, as the sun went down among bright- 
edy;ed clouds. 

'^ We went thence to the hill. The trees 
were all cleared otF, the land was well fenced, 
the corn and the grass were green, and they 
were ]ust beginning to mow. West of this hill, 
beyond a long and wet valley, there is a ridge 
of high land, in some places wooded, and in 
others open, and showing the fields beyond. 
We saw large hills and mountains ; some burnt 
over by the fires, whh dead and black trunks 
rising high in the air, and others covered with 
green and branching trees. A broad, winding 
valley, through which a stream they call Crook- 
ed river bends its way through the town, spread 
between us and the mountains. The valley 
was not so lively and pleasant as the upland. 
One reason, our teacher said, is that the pine- 
leaves are of a darker and gloomier hue than 
the leaves of the beech, the maple and the birch, 
and that the valley is full of pines, but the hills 
bore trees of brighter foliage. We turned our 
eyes from the north, and saw a wide southern 
prospect. We saw the meeting-house, and one 
7 



74 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

or two neat houses near it, surrounded vvitii 
po;ihrs, and beyond, a imuntain rising grad- 
U"Jly from the hiil on which they stand, till 
it ends on its south-eastern side in broken cliffs, 
or rather rocks piled on each other, with trees 
growing between the broken heaps. A plain 
and a pind are beneath the rough mountain 
side. Here is a sm-dl village, but it whs hid- 
den from us by the higher lan.'s behind it. — 
The pond was in sight ; so were the woods 
which sometimes touched the verse of it, and 
the new openings through them, and the beau- 
tiful farms which rose beyond. A large pond 
was at the eastward ; it had its heard in low land 
covered with dark pine and fii-; it spreads to the 
south between fine, even farms on the west, aiid 
cultivated hills on the south and east. The 
eastern hill was cleared earlier than any other 
part of the town ; one M' Wayne lived on it for 
years without wife or child, or even a friend 
within six or eight miles. He was alone, wlien 
he opened the forest, — alone night and day. 
He died in sight of large and gi owing neigh- 
borhoods. 

" Tne sun was down ; the stars began to 
rise in the skv ; before the light had gone in 
the west, the fdl moon arose. We could see the 
fields still, and the hills, and the waters, but 
there was a diinness over them ; th e sounds of 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 75 

labor were still, the herds and the flecks were 
laid down to sleep, the scenes which seemed 
rough and brrken by day, were even and gen- 
tle beneath the thin haze of evening. 1 looked 
on the great earth, and the archiiig sky with its 
stars and inoon. 1 conld not wisij to speak ; I 
was thinking ol" God." 

George blushed ai;d hesitated at thus ex- 
pressing those inward feelings which the unper- 
vertt^d mind counts too sacred to obtrude on the 
attention of others. His mother was delighted 
both bv the devotion he manifested, and by the 
modesty which made it sogracelul. " M) dear 
son," slie fervently (wclaimed, " I beseech you 
to cherish views like these ; to connect all \ou 
see with God ; to open your whole soul to tbrse 
feelings which G- d desires to have his works 
call ford) in every heart. Never is his gi e..tness 
seen more clearl) than in u beautilui eveninji, a- 
midst forcFts, and tiiotnitains. and plains, be- 
neath the stars and the moon. Evening is the 
hour to pray ; and every walk by moon-Iigfit, 
I often think, should be an offering to the pow- 
er above us." 

" This," said George, " is just as our teach- 
er told us. I rernember well his words — ' I 
brought you here, that I might tell yon of the 
greatness of God. Ycu cannot see him, but you 
behold his works. Light is around his throne, 



OXFORB SKETCHES. 



but you cannot come near it. The great lights 
of heaven were kindled by him ; he lived r;ges 
before them. I cannot lead you to his seat ; but 
1 would show you what he has done — 1 would 
bid you listen to the voice of his works, and ask 
you to let his goodness fall on your souls likedew. 
The Bible tells us, there is One God, the Ma- 
ker and Father of the world ; his works teach 
us so too. You commonly feel as if things v^-ere 
separate from one another. When you first 
learned your letters, you felt as if they had 
nothing to do with aught else ; and when you 
were studying your lessons in s^riiimmar and a- 
rithmeiic, as if ihey were useless. And so, 
when you look on nature, you feel as if the 
wind, and the waters, and the woods, the stars, 
the moon, the sun, the se-isons, the earth, its 
fruits c'.id animals, were all npart from each 
other. It is not so ; all things are parts of one 
great machine. Should you see a watch or a 
clock taken to pieces, you might think the 
wheels all useless and unconnected. The 
watch-maker f'Uis them together, and could not 
spare one. You have found that your letters 
which seemed unconnected, make words, and 
fill up the books you read at school or at home. 
You begin to see that grammar helps you to un- 
derstand these books, and that arithmetic teach- 
es you to compare many numbers. If you stu- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. / t 

dy well, you will find that all your learning is 
bound togfiher, and not hioken hea()s of ideas. 
So, it you look over the world, you will find all 
things united. You think this pebble one, sim- 
ple thing; so you think the star that shines just 
over the mountain west ol us. I will break this 
pebble ; it is now in a hundred pieces. These 
pieces niiiihl he broken so fine you could not see 
them. That star, I presume, is larger than the 
whole earth ; you do not think the earth a sin- 
gle and sini) le thing; yet all the pans of the 
earth are united as much as those of tije pebble. 
Nay, the universe is one, asiealiy as a pebble, 
the earth, or a star. JNoone thing touciies all 
other things; nor does any one wheel or ])art 
of a clock touch eveiy other wheel, or the 
weight, or the string which holds the weight, or 
the pendulum, or the fingers. The earth yields 
fruit lor men and beasth ; the beasts are ted by 
each other, and men by them ; watei quenches 
the thirst ol both, and both breathe the air. Fire 
warms men, and sends out light; trees are fit to 
burn and to give shelter to beasts, and houses to 
mea Wiiter js necessary lothe growth of fruits 
— it rises fiorn streams and lakes, and talis in 
rain and dew. All need light ; h comes from 
rays ot the sun falling on the air. We must sleep 
— llu! sun goes to enlighten other parts of the 
earth, and give them day while it is our night. 
7* 



78 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

Such a oneness \hevf is over the whole world. 
" The clock is made lor some use ; it would 
be idle to put so costly a piece of mechanism to- 
getlier without a good reason. There is a rea- 
son, I ihink, for the whole frame and all the 
parts and uictionsof the world, as simple as the 
reason lor making a clock. Gcd forms and does 
ail things, that he may give the happiness which 
grows out of goodness. He made the frame- 
work of the world and preserves it, for the sus- 
tenance of those who have minds. Whatever 
he Joes is to persuade those minds to be good- 
He makes some sick, thet he may learn them 
to trust his love; and some poor, that he may 
humble their hearts ; and some rich, that he may 
teach them kindness, ot that he may help the 
needy by them ; and some wise, that he may 
spread knowledge abroad. He tries some, 
to prove and strengthen their characters ; and 
when he sees one too wickf^d to repent, he sets 
him forth as an example of what sin is, so that 
those who know him may avoid sin which 
brings such remorse and other misery with it. 
He gives a good man the love of his friends and 
peace of mind, so that others may be won to 
him likewise. Besides all this, when he sent 
his or.ly Sim into the world, it was n(Jt to make 
men gain any thing but the happiness of being 
good. Thus the Bible and God's works show 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 79 

to US how great and good he is, that we may 
fear and love him ; so that, as we fear and love 
him, we may forsake sin, and, as we love, we 
may be like him." — ' I thought 1 could under- 
stand this, Ma' ; and it seemed to me, that if 
those children who swear, and lie, and steal, 
had heard it, they would be better/ 

" I believe, my son, if they thought about it, 
they would. To consider all things as tending 
to bring to pass the desires of that love which 
every where and always seeks to diffuse the 
happiness of true holiness, must, if the heart be 
accessible to religious impressions, touch it 
most powerfully. — But is this all your teacher 
said ?" 

" Oh, no. He spoke about the soul which 
God made, so that my heart swelled in me. — 
* My children, 1 gaze upon the stars and the 
moon, but can discern nothing like thought in 
them. They seem to move without choice or 
knowledge, like the stone when you throw it 
into the air. But you are able to think, and 
reason, and choose, and to remember what you 
think, or see, or feel. Hence you can raise 
your thoughts and desires to the great and ho- 
ly God. Without God you cannot be happy ; 
with him, you can gain the best, and endless 
happiness. Jesus Christ came to unite your 
souls to God, to make you share in his own 



80 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

goodness ; to fill you with his fulness. All who 
love, and trust, and obey him, are one with 
each other : Christ is in them, the Father is 
in them ; their happiness is sure and lasting as 
the power of God. Love God your Father, 
Jesus Christ your Saviour, and all his disci- 
ples ; do the will of God ; be always tender 
and kind ; never indulge bad passions ; never 
dishonor your parents ; avoid all that is wrong ; 
be humble, meek, just. Then, if you die, you 
shall live again, and be with God forever. You 
will have the peace of God till you die ; and 
you will awaken from death to see him and be 
like him.' This is the way our teacher talked 
to us, and I never forgit it. I am very happy 
when I think of him, of his voice, and of the 
phice where we sat to see the great works of 
God and to hear of his love. I have been there 
alone since, that 1 might regain the delightful 
thoujihts of that evening walk." 

" You have given me great pleasure, 
George," said Mrs. Greenwood ; " but you 
are young, and if you be not careful every- 
day to read the Bible, and study Goci's 
works, and pray fervently, you will lorget these 
instructions. But if you arewatchlul over your 
heart and all you do and say, God will finish 
the W'^rk, I trust, he has begun. Now we will 
kear Eliza tell us something of the last year." 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 81 

Eliza thought she had seen nothing more af- 
fecting than 

The Visit to a Death Bed. 

" You remember being with me, mamma ; 
when you wished me to go, I thought it must 
be very gloomy to see the sick man ; and 
while we were walking over the meadow, 
and saw the flowers and the fruit, and my 
mates coming to gather them, I should have 
liked to stay and play with them. As we 
went through the orchard, and passed by 
the garden where there were other child- 
ren, I would have stopped, if I could. It 
seemed dreadful to think of death ; this world 
is so pleasant I wished to live in it always 
with you, and father, and George. But after 
I was in the room where the sick man lay, it 
looked very differently, from what I expect- 
ed. You remember how he sat bolstered 
up in his bed, with his eyes closed and his 
hands clasped, and his lips moving between 
a whi'^per and a smile. 1 had seen him ap- 
pear so at meetins' ; in the time of se^rmon 
or prayer, he would sit in his seat looking so 
quiet, fervent, so holy, that 1 thought of heav- 
en where all worship God from their hearts. 
He was nearer now, it seemed to me, to 



S2 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

that world he loved so well. As you drew 
closer to him, he opened his eyf s, and took 
your hand and then niine. How calmly he 
said, ' I am ahr.ost gone, my departure is at 
hand. But I ani happy ; I have sought to 
live the life of the richteoiiS, so that I might 
die the death of the righteous. 1 am going 
to a j\ist Judge ; if I ha\e been faithful, I shall 
be accepted, if not, he will uo ridit in casting 
me offtorever. I can tru^^t only in the Lord 
Jesus Christ. I liave been enquiring of 
myself a long time, if there was any thing in 
the world I love(< so well as Jesus Christ, 
but I can find nothing.' His minister, you 
remember, cam.e to see him while we were 
there ; the good man was too feeble to say 
much ; he wished to hear him preach once 
more, but his strength was too far gone. — 
He read a chapter in which Jesus comfort- 
ed his disciples, and (iwelt much, as he 
spoke of it, on the Saviour's love and the 
happiness of heaven which was promised ; 
then prayed with him and commended his 
spirit to the Lord Jesus. The sick man lis- 
tened with fervor, his soul was happy. He 
wished to converse a long time with his 
pastor, but could not. ' I am not able,' he 
told him, ' to say much. 1 hoped to, betore 
I died ; but we know perfectly each other's 
minds. We have otten spoken together of 



OXFOR» SKETCHES. OO 

the thiiifrs of God ; they are now my happi- 
ness.' How patient he was in all his infir- 
mities ! how humble and thankfiil ! how full 
of love to all about him ! 1 shall never shun 
a death-bed agrain." 

" This leads me," said Mrs. Greenwood, 
"to think of some things which George has 
repeated, about the soul. The good man 
we visited, die 1 as he lived, and rejoiced in 
death, hopias- f )P heaven. His body is cov- 
ered lip in the earth, and mo-ilderinor away ; 
can a soul like his be with it ? All God's 
works are bea!itifully shaped to each other ; 
could it be so, were the soul, which is so 
great even in death, which souijht through 
life f )p something- it was eqnal to bnt could 
not reach, and which is impressed with hio-h- 
er dig lity and briq-hter seals of the Godhead, 
than the whole worli we look on, — to die 
with the boiy ? The house is too frail to en- 
dure ; when it f-ills, does the occupai?t go to 
a !)eit:T, or perish .^" 

'' I have had feelings like these, ma," ad- 
ded Elizi, '' but I knew no words to express 
them. List winter, I thought I should be 
happy enou?h w'len spring came, and 
Gaorj^-e and I coul 1 w ilk together in the 
fiiel Is, and phi^k the flo vers, and talk about 
all we wished. The spring came, and then 
I asked for sUinmer ; as the summer was 



84 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

passing", I hoped to find autumn happier. — 
But there was no change, and I have found 
nothing to give me full content. 1 thought 
if I could have a place and friends such as 
poems and stories describe, I must be hap- 
py ; but I always wished for something be- 
yond all I could reach. It is because the 
soul is so much greater than any thing in 
the world ; is it not, mamma ]" 

'' It is, my daughter ; and the Bible only 
reveals that which can fill the mind. There 
he many that sny^ who will show us any good ? 
Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance 
upon us. — .As for me, T will behold thy face in 
righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I a- 
wake, with thy likeness. — Whom have 1 in hea- 
ven but thee ? and there is none upon earth 
that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my 
heart faileth ; but God is the strength of my 
heart, and my portion for ever. ^^ 

Henry and William were pleased with their 
trip into the woods in the spring with George 
and Eliza, and the eldest began to describe 

The May-day Walk. 

" It was a little after sun-rise ; we had been 
thinking of the walk a great while ; we were 
up very early, and started for the woods. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 8o 

We went through the pasture, and saw the 
cattle just beg^mnins; to bite the grass, and the 
sheep nibbling on a little hill near us with the 
lambs frisking about them. Then we went 
down into a piece of low ground ; there was 
a brook running through it ; high elms bent 
over it, sometimes rising in a circle around 
a grassy spot ; the brook was at their root, 
winding its course tlirouirh the valley ; and 
all was calm and beautiful." 

''There were many wild flowers in that 
nook of oTound," said William, who looked 
to the minuter productions of nature, as his 
brother loved its broader and more open 
forms. '■' Just where the snow-drop could 
steal a dry place over the waters, it would 
spread itselfout, and sometimes dip its leaves 
audits bunch of tiny blossoms into the brook. 
I pulled up a root — the one which I planted 
in the garden ; you remember what pretty 
flowers it bore in the bed. A stalk was just 
peeping out of the ground, which George 
called the lily ; and when I brought it to the 
garden, how tall it grew, and bore a spotted 
yellow flower, which hung down like a bell. 
We came to the upland, and found in the 
woods a plant with a slender stalk from which 
three leaves grow out, and between them a 
tine stem that rises a few inches, and bears 

8 



^^ OXFORD SKETCHES. 

on its top an erect and broad-leafed flower." 
" I have often seen it," said his mother, 
"by the road-side in wools. The name 
it has in some places, is Jit-root ; the Indians 
call it so from a medicinal property they sup- 
pose it to possess. Its name with botanists, 
I do not know. — You may go, William, and 
get your little collection of flowers, and, faded 
as they are, we will look at the whole, when 
Henry has gone throu'^'h his walk." 

Henry continued : '* We went from this 
valley throu^-h a field into a large forest. 
The leaves were just shooting^ out, and 
spreadinsr a fresh green over the whole wood. 
The birds were 3in£?in2' on the branches ; 
but when we found a nest, George and Eliza 
told us we must not touch it. Sometimes, 
they said, if the old birds were afraid, they 
would leave their nests, so that no young 
birds would come from the egTS. They told 
us too, that in the summer we must never 
get the little robbins or sparrows, or any 
other bird from the nest, for it was cruel ; 
the younir would be sad because they could 
not fly with their mates in the open air, and 
the old would mourn because they had lost 
what they loved and took care of many a 
long day and chilly night. We tho'ight it 
quite ri^ht which they sail; and T never 
mean to steal a bird in my life, or any other 



<*XrORD SKETCHES. 87 

creature. I love to see the squirrel run 
along the fence, or the fields or woods, and 
sit down in a safe place to eat his nuts and 
corn ; and how beautiful the weazel is — he 
would run as if he were flying-, and I could 
scarcely get a peep at him before he was 
hid in his'hole. Then there are the rabbit, 
and the deer, and many more animals, I love 
too well to hunt or hurt. 

"We heard a roariuo- sound not far from 
us, and were afraid. But George said it was 
a brook fallino^ over rocks ; and the melted 
snow and the April rain made it very large. 
So we thought we would go to it. Oh ma, 
I wish you could have seen it ! There was 
a long, open valley, as if the hill had been 
parted, before us ; the sides which went 
down to the water's edge, were steep and 
rough ; the brook foamed over great rocks ; 
when we looked upward, we saw and heard 
it dashing down over ledges ; below us, it 
struck a vast rock that crossed its path, and 
fell into a sort of trough it had worn in the 
earth underneath. Above, it rose in spray 
white as snow ; below, it lay in sheets 
of loam, then spread out smooth and clear, 
and flowed evenly under the trees, and was 
sometimes lost almost in the moist eartli and 
among the faflen leaves. 

" Now we began to think of coming home. 



88 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

The plain which we saw from the wood as 
we came out of it, and the houses scattered 
over it, were very pleasant ; the sun shone 
on them from a high place in tiie sky ; and 
homeward we tripped, bringing flowers we 
picked for Mary, and wishing to see you 
and pa', and to play with little Caroline." 

William's flowers were now together ; he 
brought also a i'ew mineral specii;)ens, which 
his father taught him to value with all the 
works of nature, because they are works of 
God. Besides the wild flowers, ol which he 
had gathered many from the intervals, the 
swnmps, the fields, the Ibrests, ana the banks 
of brooks and rivers, he hati tl ose wnich, 
in our cliniate, grow only by cuitbre. W ith 
the blue flower borne on a stalk enclosed by 
the long and pointed leaves of a species of 
flag which sprir^gs up in low and neglected 
lands, he held one soniewhat like ii, but larg- 
er and more splendid from the garden. — 
With the white violet and the finer blue^ 
which spread over the fields ircm early 
spring into the summer, he pointed to the 
deep and brilliant hues of a flower that blows 
every montl), which some caW iadies^ delight. 
With the wild-rose, whose four leaves open 
and fall unseen in the desolate pasture ground 
he showed the lull r^nd hagrant rose, the 
queen of flowers. Next, he opened his lit- 



•XFORD SKETCHES. 89 

tie cabinet ; it had not many minerals, — the 
neighborhood yielded few varieties, — but his 
father early accustomed him to gather them 
in his walks, and preserve them as illustra- 
tions, not less than other portions of nature, 
of the inexhaustible riches of the wisdom and 
power of God. — "Look," cried he, "look 
at these pieces of ising-glass ; here is one as 
clear as glass itself; another — it has as n;ai>y 
colors as the prismx ; see tliese others, black, 
green, and colored like lilac. Here is the 
schorl, black like the coal and brittle ; here 
the tourmaline — how deep the green, and 
how clear to look through ! here is the red 
tourmaline ; this piece like crimson and that 
like the peach ; here the white, clear and 
tinged with red ; and here are several shades 
of the blue. This is the quartz ; see how 
white ! there is a piece of dull and dark col- 
or, a mere pebble ; there is a beautiful one, 
and bright though clouded. There are crys- 
tals of quartz-*-how finely shaped ! how 
smooth and well turned io the end ! how 
clear, and what hues like the rainbow !" — 
Thus William dwelt on the beauty of his min- 
erals and flowers, till, as he finished, his 
brother took out of his pocket and gave him 
a few pieces of crystallized quartz and feld- 
spar, adding, — " I got them when I was rid- 
ing with father through Greenwood, and 

8* 



90 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

kept them for memorials of the cave from 
which they were taken. M e left the chaise 
to look at the cave which was not far oft'. A 
deep valley runs through the town from the 
hills on the southern shore of the Androscog- 
gin, and continues to widen till ii is lost in 
the large pond in Norway and the low lands 
about it. The cave is in the hill east of this 
valley, far above its bed. A spur, as they 
term it, juts far out into this valley, and ends 
in a high precipice looking to the south-west. 
The rock, at the top ol the precipice, hangs 
over the base, like a piazza. At the south- 
ern extremity, tlie cave opens into the hill ; 
its mouth is of the width of thirty feet, and its 
height forty. It grows narrower as you en- 
ter, and its sides nieet at the end of the cave, 
more than seventy feet from the opening. 
The floor is of limestone broken to pieces 
the roof is hung with stalactites, resembling 
icicles. The cave is so wide and open as to 
let in the full sun-light, and as we turned to 
go out, we saw the trees rising high in the 
valley, and shading wiih thick leaves the as- 
cent of the hill and the cliffs. V>, e passed 
from the cave to the right ; the white rock 
was far above us ; at our feet the moss 
spread its soft green ; in one place a stream 
was bursting from the hill-side ; and we had 
frequent glimpses of the meadows, of the 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 91 

herds and flocks grazing in the pasture, and 
of the green corn waving in the west wind."* 
Mary ana Caroline liaci set long lor chil- 
dren so youi g ; they grew restless and play- 
ful ; and the u.ies ol the new year's morning 
were interrupteu by the irresistihle propen- 
sity to share in us pkasures. The elder 
chiiaren were called to tlieir books, ana the 
younger sported and danced in their un- 
sought joy oi heart. 

The Christian'' s views of the creation. 

CoWFER, 



He looks abroad into the varied field 

Of nature, and tiiough poor, perhaps, compared 

With those whose mansions glitter in his sight. 

Calls the delightful scenery all his own. 

His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 

And .he resplendent rivers His to enjoy 

With a propriety that none can feel. 

But who, with filial confidence inspi ed, 

Can lift to heaven an unpiesuniptuous eye, 

And smiling say — My Father made them all ! 

Are they not his by a peculiar right, 

And by an emphasis of interest his, 

Whose eye they fill with tears « f holy joy. 

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 

With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, 

* For the substance of this description, I am indebtpd 
to an article in the Oxford Observer of C'ct. 14, Jb24, 
connected by Viator with a valbable series on the "Min- 
eralogy and Geology of Oxford County." 



92 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

That planned, and built, and still upholds 

A world so cloihed with beauty for rebellious man .-' 

The JVew Yearns Evening, 

" It is a rough evening without," said Mr. 
Greenwood, as he rose from the table at which 
he was vvriting, and listened to the roar of the 
wind. His younger children were asleep ; the 
elder of them were by his side and their moth- 
er's, engaged industriously in their proper em- 
ployments. " The new year has brought se- 
vere cold ; but we are happy in our security. 
I trust we have remembered the destitute, and 
done what we could for their comfort this cold 
season. Let us now think of what the hour 
calls solemnly to mind. It seems but a day 
since the last new year ; this is going away as 
rapidly. I have a discourse by me that I heard 
early last year ; perhaps we may listen to it 
this evening. Every thing around us testifies 
to the truth of its great point." 

The family were not like some to whom a 
sermon is another name for dulness — an apolo- 
gy for sleep. They loved to hear sermons 
from the pulpit, and to read them in private. 
They prepared themselves now to listen with- 
out interruption to their father, as he took the 
manuscript from his desk and opened it. He 
began : — 



OXFORD SKETCHES. VO 

1 Cor. vii, 31. — Ihe fashion of this world 
passeih away. Ihe iieqiieijcy with which the 
fijgitivfc! nature of eariiil) things torces itseli on 
the mind, (ar fn m inijaniiig the interest which 
men leel in ihe subject, is a strong indication 
that its hold on their lieartsis abiding. Of the 
same lact we havt constant testimori) in lije at- 
tractiveness of the exanjj'les lurnished by na- 
ture and poetry in illustration of our mortality, 
in the thiilling and mysterious power with 
which the very nanics ol such objects as tlie 
setting sun, the waning mcon, dissojving clouds, 
autumn, evening, ever iailing leaves and a 
wasting lamp, — the coninicn en.blenis ol our 
condition on earth, — go through the soul waking 
its deepest emotions, as the ni^ht air wakes the 
pensive melodies ol the wii d-haip. iSoi are 
there in the word of inspiraticn any passages 
more familiar, none seiziiig our attrition n;ore 
strcngiy, throwing} as it were a spell about the 
heart, — than those which ccn.j are lite to the 
fleeting lorn's of nature, oi whicJj, as in the 
simple language ol the text, assure us that the 
fashion of this world passeth awry. This as- 
surance may be illustrated with icspect to the 
possessions, the enjoyments and sufierings of 
life, its connexions, and the world itseli. 

Of earthly possessions no more should be 
expected than will satisfy want, together with 



94 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

their continuance through life. Let this ex- 
pectation be realized. I am not now to set 
forth their insufficiency even when attained, to 
fill your desires ; I am not to say-— obvious as 
the truth is — how they float, as it were, over 
the surface of thought without touching its deep 
and ever gushing fountains, — how they dwell 
without the soul unable to enter its inmost seat, 
the shrine which God only can fill ; I have 
another object, to remind you that, if they could 
go deeper into the soul, their abode is of short 
duration. Gather all which you desire around 
you. Ask of your often languid body, of your 
thinking; mind, of your early friends, of the 
providence of God, how long it will remain with 
you. A voice, like the vision of the eastern 
monarch, comes from other ages,from tlie depths 
of the soul, from the seat of the Eternal, — 
Prepare thysolf ; thou must go to God. From 
thy bcdy returned to the earth, thy spirit shall 
rise to other scenes. Thy life, a prophetic 
thoue'i fitful dream, — life, the momentary 
breath, rising, and swelling, and sinking before 
some awful pause in the winter-tempest, — is 
bui -he herald of death. Then whose shall 
thae things be which thou hasi provided ? 

Besides wealth, there are many sources of 
enj-^yment and suffering. The senses, the ap- 
tites, the desires are so many susceptibilities of 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 95 

both adapted to our relations to the portion of 
the universe which surrounds us ; they are the 
chords that respond to the various classes of 
objects with which we are connected. Figure 
to yourselves an individual, in whom these sus- 
ceptibilities are refined to the utmost, and 
around whom these objects are profusely gath- 
ered. The eye is filled with brilliant visions; 
the flesh is indulged in all it asks ; the pride of 
the soul is sustained by the acclamations of 
praise. The day is spent in absorbing busi- 
ness ; the evening passes in festivity ; ni^ht 
prepares by the repose it gives for succeeding 
alternations of occupation and amusement. 
The scene is changed. On the cheek of this 
happy man the bloom of health has faded, his 
limbs are enfeebled, his whole frame is emacia- 
ted. Tell him now of mirthful hours ; tell him 
the festive band is collected, the viol leads on 
the dance, the wine sparkles in the cup, the 
smile brightens the cheek of youth and health 
and love. No voice whisners rest to his fever- 
ish spirit. Tell him of his own praise, — it was 
once sweeter than music to his soul ; it dies 
away, unheeded, now. One more change ! 
His brow is fixed and pale. He is carried 
foith to mingle with the dissolving clods. O 
Pleasure, whither hast thou fled ? Sure thy 
seat is not in the dark tomb ; no, thou hast 



96 OXFORD SKETCHES 

snusht a living bosom to lead astray and aban- 
don ! Praise, airy and rn2;itive shadow, whith- 
er art thou vanished ? Hears he thine enchant- 
ing; tones ? Thou sendest ihetn swelling; and 
echoing to other ages ; they float in widening 
circles with the hours over his grave, — canst 
thou carry them down to his lowly resting-place ? 
Alas ! the breath that stirs the sunny surface of 
the stream, leaves its deep bed untouched and 
darkling. 

When the enjoyments of life end, then end 
its many sufFerinsjs. You endure the censures 
of men ; thev will be forgotten, unheeded, in 
the fi^rave. You are poor ; the little which you 
need below, will not be wanted long. You suf- 
fer distressing sickness ; it will help the body 
to its last rest. You feel oppression ; there the 
prisoners rest tosre.ther ; they hear not the voice 
of the oppressor. The small and great are 
there ; and the servant is free from, his master. 
There the wicked cease from troubling ; and 
there the weary he at rest. 

With the possessions, enjoyments and suffer- 
ings of life, its connexions also terminate. From 
whom of us has not some friend been already 
taken ^ The parent has wept for his children ; 
or the husband or wife for the dissolution of 
ties formed in youth and cemented by mutual 
cares and hopes ; or the child for the father or 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 97 

wiDther whose pride and joy he was. The 
yonuy; m^n has been abandoned by his earliest 
companions ; the old man stands alone desert- 
ed by the friends of his yonth. They were 
pioneers in the path which survivers mnst tread : 
one frenpration pisseth away, and another gen- 
eration Cometh. The waves swell and are 
broken ; nevv waves swell and are broken ; the 
ocean heaves and foams beneath the perpetual 
rush of waters rolling together and severed, 
mino-lina;, dissoWing, lost. 

The successive destinies of individual and 
associated men, are e n!)lems of the catastrophe 
to w'nich the world is itself reserved. Twice 
already it his been, if we may so term it, ia 
ruins. When it was first created, we know not. 
The period is not defined in the Bible. The 
Bi'jle tells us of the eirth, now productive 
and benutiful, now enlightened by sun, and 
moon, and stars, as a chaos ivithout form 
and void, and ov^Tspread with darkness. 
Ae lin it was overwhelmed bv a delude : The 
wat'^J's prevailed exceedin^hj upon the earth ; 
and all the hig^h hUU that were under the whole 
henven were covere'-f. The system awaits a 
third revolution. The world th it then was, ex- 
isting either in chcios or in the flood, being 
overflowed with wtter, perished. B ti the heav- 
ens and the earth which are now, by the word 

9 



98 Oxford sketches. 

of God are kept in store, reserved unto firf. 
This change in the material world is prelimin- 
ary to the universal judgmentj — 1 saw a great 
white throne^ and him. that sat on it, from, whose 
face the earth and the heavens fled away ; and, 
there was found no place for them. And 1 saw 
the dead small and great stand before God : 
and the books were opened ; and another book- 
was opened which is the. book of life ; and the 
dead were judged- out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their 
works. 

To these changes in the visible creation, the 
present season has long been viewed as fur- 
nishing the best analogies. Nature desolate, 
the tempest gathering and pouring out its fury, 
the promises of spring and the riches of au- 
tumn vanished, — these are the daily-repeated 
prophecies, the ever-recurring emblems of what 
man shall be, when beauty, joy, w^ealth, friend- 
ship wither beneath the blast of death; of what 
the world shall be when its fields occupied by 
the habitations of men, and flourishing with 
their labor, its green valleys watered by deep 
and beautiful streams, its high mountains crown- 
ed with inaccessible and perpetual forests, pass 
away like the visions of sleep ; when with the 
vast globe, its spacious continents and its un- 
bounded oceans, the heavens shall be rolled 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 99 

together. Yet 'lis not a gloomy prospect. 
— True, we cannot make our own or na- 
ture's frame immortal, if we would ; but I envy- 
not the man who would, if it were in his pow- 
er. Oh, who — conscious of powers though 
infant now, yet aspiring after something be- 
yond their years and above their reach — who, 
jeeliiig himself oppressed by worldly cares and 
feeble flesh detaching him from the Spirit of 
heaven, — would ask eternal imprisonment? — 
Rather let the body perish, that the soul may 
be free ; that the soul may plume its fledged 
wings, and do the behests of its great parent 
amidst the brightness itself of his presence. 

To v\ant those views of immortality, confirm- 
ed by the testimony of God given to the world 
through his Son, and by the resurrection ol 
Jesus, has been the lot of many minds, formed 
(if they could have grasped sacred truth) to 
enshrine it in man's deepest thoughts and af- 
iections. Lost in endless mazes of error, they 
swerved from their better destiny ; and, in- 
stead of inspiring truth with confidence and 
virtue with energy, they still live in the pro- 
ducts of their genius, to soothe vice and up- 
hold delusion, to produce obhvious scepticism 
of fiiturity, to urge festivity because life is short, 
diligence in dissipation because the period of 
dissipation is but a moment. As behevers in 



100 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

the gospel of Christ, — as (]iscij']fs of him wh© 
hath declared hirrjseli tlit reauircttion arid the 
life, we admit, 1 say not without reluctance, 
but with elevated joy, the Epicurean dehnea- 
tions of human frailty ; but efkice from ii:em 
a different inference ; — Tl reoding continually 
over the ashes ol the dead, we learn our fies- 
tiny. The fire within us sli&ll soon go out. 
We pursue hourly the track tliat leads to death. 
Over us all, undistji.guishnig night is rushing. 
The moment, in v>hich we s[ieak it, passes, 
anc leaves us nearer to the last. But we will 
neither repine, nor waste the futuie in mirth. 
Nor will we be thoughtless, absorbed in the 
present on which the lutuie presses so closely. 
With a leader licm henven, with the fuh-ess 
of Jesus Christ to si'stnin us an)idsl the depress- 
ing scenesof er:rth, with tl e inspiration oi God's 
Spirit to guide and prcmpt our iervor, v\e will 
Dot yield to despair; we will fear naught but 
sin, we will hold fast cur integrity unto death, 
we will pursue, till we perceive in our own 
souls, the image of divine perfection. Begot- 
ten oi God to immortal lite, v\e will forget nei- 
ther our origin nor our destiny ; that when, as 
soon it must, the fashion of this world shall 
pass away, other worlds may be the scene of 
our constant effort and endless progress. 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 



101 



To reflect on the short continuance of earth- 
ly things without thought of futurity or instruc- 
tions to religion, avails nothing to our spir- 
itual improvement. As it vi^ill not increase 
happiness to feel that its end is near, so it can 
neither advance virtue to teach that its sphere 
of operation, and even existence, is narrow, 
nor withdraw the soul from earthly aftections 
to learn that their object is evanescent. This 
effect can be secured only by bringing heav- 
enly objects into contact with mind, by con- 
viction that eternity shall succeed time ; that 
the future is better than the present ; that hea- 
ven is man's destined abode ; that, in a word, 
as the Apostle affirms of the dispensation of 
Moses compared with the gospel of Jesus, the 
world hath no glory by reason of the glory 
that excelleth. And to both the same argu- 
ment will apply, — If that which is done away 
was glorious, much more that which remaineth 
is glorious. By one or the other of these ob- 
jects, — by the momentary or the permanent, 
mind must be possessed. It must be occupi- 
ed ; mind cannot exemplify in itself the vacui- 
ty which philosophy may imagine in the infini- 
tude of space. It will be filled by the world, 
till the world be expelled by a niassier object. 
It will cling to the moment which divides life 
from immortality, till hope and faith fix its 

9* 



102 OXFORD SKETCHED, 

grasp to the glories of the opening paradise. 
Now how can it be, that acknowJedging all 
we affirm of the fashion of ttiis world, and of 
the duration of v\ hat is to come, man yet choos- 
es and cleaves to the receding shadow r Can 
this wonderlul phenonienon be accounted ior 
without ascribing to him something worse than 
folly ? without resorting to principles in the 
heart which imply guilt ? True, the mind, Irom 
its very natui e, leels the present more than the 
future, — from its early connection with n-atter, 
ivorldly things rather than spiritual, — Irom its 
union with the body, sensitive abc/ve intellec- 
tual objects. Still it can counteract these pro- 
pensities. It often does. In the conflict of 
worldly interests, it surrenders the near to 
more remote good ; in the conflict of which 
the best men are conscious between religion 
and the passions, the invisible and the spni- 
tual gain. a progiessive victory over all which 
the Vvorld ofiers and the appetites seek. Af- 
ter every legitimate deduction oi physical ob- 
stacles to the employment oi thought and ac- 
tion in religion, tlie great cause remains ; the 
cause which self-direction, guided by the tiuth 
and power ol God, would prevent or remove, 
depravity criminal not only in itself hut in its 
indulgence, aiid with indulgence muhi}>l}ing 
its operations, — acquiring strength as it uuvan- 



OXFOR» SKETCHES. 103 

ces. Gratitude for divine mercies, love of 
truth and holiness, diffusive benevolence, these 
feelings could not fail of imparling spirituality 
to the mind ; but of tiiese ieelings, who will 
attempt to justiiy the absence ? 

That ycu may derive salutary effects from 
considering dns subject, it is first indispensable 
to carry the mind forward in its affections and 
hopes, to look down, if we may so speak, on 
eaith as if out of heaven. TLc' gain this sum- 
mit, this mount of vision, is the higii office of 
faith, of belief and trust in him wlio hath abol- 
ished death, and brought life and immortality 
to lis^ht. Believe in Jesus as your best and 
woll-iried friend. Believe that he was deliver- 
ed for our offences, and was raised again for ovr 
justification. Trust to his sacrifice, his power 
and love, assured that in his Father^s house 
(and he hath authorized us to deem his Father 
our own also) are many mansions^ into which 
he hath gone to prepare a place for his dis- 
ciples. 

Faith like this, exerting its true influence, 
is essentiall} connected with the regeneration 
which our Saviour declares to be necessary to 
the perception and enjojment oj his kingdom ; 
that change, which transfers mar from a state 
ot worldlmess to union with God, uhich breaks 
his connection with sin and lorms him to hoii- 



104 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

ness, which adds to liis relations to this life 
those of an endless existence, makes him a citi- 
zen of heaven, while a pilgrim on earth, and 
surrounds his embryo powers with the mighti- 
est instruments and the noblest foims of excel- 
lence, while at the same moment it instils that 
vigorous and celestial principle which raises 
them continually from the mass of worldly cor- 
ruption to the higher scenes ihey witness in 
their perpetual ascent. To bring within your 
own experience these sure results of the new 
birth, abandon every course of sin, resist each 
tendency to disobedience, perform faithfully 
every ascertained duty, study the Bible as 
God's Word, and pray fervently for his Spirit, 
— maintaining through the whole of life an in- 
ward intercourse with the Great Being, who is 
at once the source and the portion of holiness, 
its inspirer, its patron, its revvarder. Let the 
year which ye may have begun without God 
and without hope, be hallowed as the era of 
your conversion by the divine power and truth. 
Then ye may rejoice, that the fashion of this 
world passeth away ; now, its progress hastens 
your destruction. 

The fashion of this world passeth away. Ye 
acknowledge it to be true ; do ye heed its so- 
lemn intimations of duty ? do ye renounce its 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 105 

idolatry ? do ye cease from pursuing its sinful 
customs and its deceiving promises? 

Tile fashion of this world passt-th away. Ye 
have lost possessions ever deemed secure, en- 
joyments once imagined to be — mny 1 not say ? 
— inalierjaijle, friends vvliose mtmcry is woven 
into the whole w^eb of ) our affections. These 
are monitors of your destiny ; have ye listened 
to their voice, and sought imperishable uealth, 
uiimingled pleasures and iinnjorlal friends? 

The fashion of this world passeih away. 
Heaven and Hell coi 5-p'ie with Earth to an- 
nounce your destiny. From both comes the 
voice of the dead — the iscended saint calling 
you upward — the perishtd outcast uoui God 
urging you to avoid ihe place ol torrr.ent. Both 
entreat you to resist the world, to flee from its 
dominion, to cherish a taith victorious, like its 
author, over the empire of sin. Wil! ye listen 
to the voice ! Young men ! — will you put your 
strength forth to the encounter ? Child ! will 
you begin lile for God, like Jesus, the holy 
son of IVIaiy ? Shall Uianhood spend its ener- 
gies on what it has long confessed to be phan- 
toms ? Shall old age, just mooring in its last 
haven, cling to its wreck ? As it sees paradise 
near, shall it refuse to bicathethe fresh and sa- 
cred air which floats about its own desolations? 

The fashion of this world passeth away. But 



106 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

there are objects which can never pass ; God, 
the Father of the universe, Jesus his everlast- 
ing Son, the Spirit which teaches what man 
cannot see, or hear, or learn from his own fee- 
ble organs ; — next mind, God's image, the 
manifestation of his attributes. Man, to whom 
a breath may convey pestilence, whom the fee- 
blest insect may harass, whom the fire burns, 
water overwhelms, sickness wastes, the worm 
devours ; — man, chained down to bodily toils, 
the creature of a day, the sport of casualties, 
is yet immortal, destined to walk above the 
stars, to serve God as his priest in the celestial 
temple. I figure to myself first the material 
creation, immense and magnificent, the tent^ ac- 
cording to the representation of insjjired wri- 
ters, the palace of Jehovah ; then some man 
weak in body, poor in estate, ignorant in mind, 
despised like his Saviour and forsaken of men. 
In this suffering disciple, I discern a brighter 
impress of Divinity than is stamped on the uni- 
verse of matter. This is the mirror, he the im- 
age, of the Eternal. This shall pass away, he 
shall live unhurt amidst the ruin. The flame 
of mind which burns feebly now, shall be 
brigliter than the sun ; and, when the sun goes 
out in darkness, shall gather and diffuse forev- 
er its godlike effulgence. 

If man, amidst a perishing universe, possess 



OXFORD SKETCHES. . 107 

a princl[)le so abiding; if, even when the world 
is burned up, the soul shall remain unscathed 
in its flames, and if, as the Bible assures us, 
the soul may perish — how strong the motive to 
industry in the discharge ol' every duty ! Let 
the intellectual and the moral powers be culti- 
vated with assiduity. Let duty both to God 
and to man be done faithfully. Nay, let the 
common offices of life be performed with dili- 
gence and fervor of spirit. Think not that the 
business of life is too low for your aspirations 
and your destiny, that it interferes with holier 
employments. Rather make every occupation, 
every action, the whole of your business, sub- 
sidiary to religion, devoting each moment to 
God, and doing the duties of your stations as 
servants, cheerfully awaiting your elevation to 
a higher place in the family of God. As child- 
ren in pupilage, consent to live and labor like 
children, till you reach the fulness of your stat- 
ure and the maturity of your powers ; to en- 
dure discipline, to prepare for your manhood of 
being : be children of obedience, not fashion- 
ing yourselves according to the former lusts in 
your Ignorance ; but as he which hath called 
you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of con- 
versation. This apostolic injunction shows 
what ought always to be a specific object o f 
your industry, — 'the culture of spiritual afFec- 



108 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

tioiis with a life inspii'ed and controlled by their 
influence. Such cnlture will save you from 
the doom, succeeding; the period when to you 
the fii>hion of this world has passed away, 
which Jhs'is Christ has so impressively descri- 
bed. Ever adaptins; his instructions to the 
character and circumstances of those with 
whom he conversed ; he uttered to the Pha- 
risees, who, it is declared, were covetous, a 
parable illustrating the inefficacy of wealth 
to man^s final happiness. The rich man, 
attired in re?a! magnificence, clothed in pur- 
ple and fine linen, possessed of all which ap- 
petite could demand, faring sumptuously ev- 
er]! ^^y^ ^t^ll before the great enemy, — he 
died; and. was hurled, doubtless, with the 
splendor suited to his wealth and luxury. In 
his life time, he received his good things; 
in the receptacle of the dead, he is tormented. 
He IS separated at an impassable distance from 
the spirits of just men, from Abraham, his 
great progenitor, nay, from Lazarus wh:) once 
laid in poverty and pain at his door. He lov- 
ed money, he idolized the fashion of this 
^vorld ; it passed and left him desolate and ru- 
ined. Or, consider the inefficacy to your sal- 
vation, not of wealth merely, but of honor, of 
pleasm e, of all the world gives and vaunts. — 
Diligently purifying and strengthening your af- 



OXFORD SKETCHES. 109 

lections, if ye possess large estates, — if ye 
have received the mammon of unrighteousness, 
ye will employ it to prepare you for everlasting 
habitations ; if ye are poor in this world, yet 
are ye rich by faith, heirs of God and joint- 
heirs with Jesus Christ. 

A great defect among christians in this cul- 
ture of the heart, consists in neglect of well- 
defined system. They leave their affections, 
so to speak, to form themselves, to grow at 
random. Adopt such a course, or rather a- 
dopt no course established and pursued, in 
your worldly labor ; submit the whole to the 
influence of momentary feeling ; make the cul- 
tivation of your fiel(is, the care of your prop- 
erty, not a business, but a thing of casualty. 
How soon would every thing run to waste ! — 
Fear ye not that similar neglect of the soul 
will involve you in spiritual bankruptcy ? 

Nor confine your efforts to your own sal- 
vation ; seek earnestly the salvadon of others, 
of your relatives, your neighbors, your friends. 
Set before men the most persuasive argument 
to repentance, a character conformed to the 
doctrine and life of Jesus, — upright, humble, 
meek, ready to surrender every thing to re- 
ligion and duty, but retaining them at every 
hazard. Present to God the most effectual 
instrument of securing his favor, incessant 
10 



110 OXFORD SKETCHES. 

prayer, issuing from a purified heart and earn- 
est affections. Thus, after the approaching 
revolutions of the universe, ye may hope to 
mingle with those whom ye loved and mourn- 
ed on earth ; to praise God, not only that ye 
and they are happy, but that ye were helpers 
of their virtue, workers with God in strength- 
ening their faith, inspiring their love, and ex- 
alting their hope. Can earth furnish an office 
honorable and blissful like this } Can a nobler 
scene of ambition be opened, than that in which 
we are ministers of God to men, associated with 
angels in aiding the progress, and sustaining the 
souls, of the heirs of salvation ? — laboring with 
the Lord Jesus Christ and with God, even the 
Father, in advancing the destined results of 
his infinite providence and endless love ? 

Promise of God the Father to the Son, 

Milton. 

When thou, attended gloriously from Heavenj 
Sh«it in the sky appear, and from thee send, 
The summoning ar<"hangel to proclaim 
Thy dread tribunal, forthwith from all winds 
The living, and forthwith the cited dead 
Of all j)ast ages, to the general doom 
Shall hasten, such a peal shall rouse their sleep ; 
Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge 
Bad men and angels ; they arraigned shall sink 
Benaath thy sentence ; Hell, her members full. 
Thenceforth shall be forever shut. Meanwhile 



OXFORD SKETCHES. Ill 

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring 
New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell. 
And, after all their tribulations long, 
See goiden days, fruitful of golden deeds, 
With joy and love triumphing, and fair truth.. 



CONTENTS. 

The Domestic Evening - - - 3 

The First Settlers - - , - 4 

The Falls of the Androscoggin - - 7 

Lake Umbagog - - - - 10 

Evening Prayer of a Cottager - - 19 

The Grave Yard . - - - 20 

Separation of Christian Friends - - 27 

The Lecture for Children - - 28 

Hymn of Angels to the Messiah - - 39 

The Thanksgiving Evening - - 39 

Segar's Captivity - - - - 44 

Lovell's Fight 55 

Hope of Future Improvement - - 69 

The New Year's Morning - - - 70 

An Evening Walk - - - - 71 

The Visit to a Death Bed - - - 81 

The May-day Walk - - . - 84 

The Christian's Views of the Creation - 91 

The New Year's Evening - - - 92 

Promise of God the Father to the Son - 110 



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